Posts tagged:

media

Finnish Media Landscape Is Starting To Shift. About Time!

by Ville Vesterinen, February 26, 2010 — 12 Comments

We recently argued that Schibsted will give Finnish media companies a run for their money in classifieds and market places. Now Schibsted Classified Media Finland’s CEO, Jussi Lystimäki, tells us that Tori.fi just passed the one million unique visitor water mark last week. This comes from a firm who just opened their Finnish site in December.

Lystimäki further commented that they are adding tens of thousands of products a month. No doubt, this traffic has not been cheap, but it comes to show that that digital marketing is fulfilling its overdue promise and that ROI is superior compared to the traditional channels. If marketing’s focus is moving online, it should also be the media’s.

Finland is not protected from what has been happening in other markets for some time and it’s high time for the Finnish companies to wake up to reality. I might be overly optimistic here, but perhaps they may even start innovating on their own and who knows, maybe we will see quality content emerge beyond classifieds. Never have Finns been as innovative and performed as well as when the crisis has been the deepest. And deep it is.

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Is There An Online Future For Old Media?

by Guest Blogger, February 12, 2010 — 12 Comments

The two big Finnish “old media” companies, Sanoma and Alma Media, published their 2009 results yesterday and today, respectively. However, as seems to be the common policy, neither of them was too open about the state of their online business. But luckily Alma still offered some nuggets of information for constructing a picture of what’s going on.

The two online legs of an old media company are typically classifieds and editorially driven news sites. Alma’s classifieds segment, which includes such assets as the housing site Etuovi.com and jobs site Monster.fi, posted a loss of €0.7m with an €27m revenue. Sanoma doesn’t give out any information on its online classifieds.

On the online news side, Alma publishes Iltalehti.fi, the biggest website in Finland by unique visitors. Although the full year figures for the asset were not disclosed today, the Q1/09 report from April states a revenue of €1.2m, so the annual income is likely to be around the €5m mark. Given that Iltalehti.fi relies mainly on journalistic content, the site is – after full allocation of editorial costs – most likely loss-making or, if they’re lucky, posting a very small profit.

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The Apple Tablet …Which Is Made In Sweden. Or Is It Kindle? (Video)

by Ville Vesterinen, January 6, 2010 — 7 Comments

One can’t have missed the buzz (to the extent its ridiculous) of Apple’s rumored tablet that is rumored to be unveiled in San Francisco on Tuesday, January 26.

In addition to the Jesus tablet (yes, that’s what some people call it) there are rumors about a similar-ish device from Microsoft, a color tablet device called Courier and of course HTC is cooking one with Google, maybe. At least that’s the word on the street.

What do you do with the too big iPhone? Just as the vision of the infamous CrunchPad, it would be a great device to browse the web laying on the couch. After all taking a MacBook Pro to bed or browsing it while laying on the couch is not only clunky and difficult, it is also likely to burn you. But there is only so much Internet you can browse while laying on your back or when curled up on a couch. So what would be even better usage for a browser that does not fit in your pocket?
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Headweb – DRM-free Movies On Demand

by Paula Marttila, July 16, 2009 — 3 Comments

(To our readers in Sweden: There’s a little summer gift waiting for you in the end of the article.)

As filesharing, piracy, copyright and privacy issues, and the future of media in whole being the current hot topics, I sat down with Peter Alvarsson, Founder and COO Headweb, to hear his thoughts as an industry player dealing with the changing market space.

Headweb.comHeadweb is a Swedish startup offering movies online for both rent and download. The company was founded 2006 being the first legal service to offer DRM-free downloads. Not just that, they also engourage and reward filesharing using a custom P2P technology to deliver downloads. The service is platform independent, by so far one of a kind in Sweden, running smoothly both on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Headweb is a premium service charging average $3 / $13 per movie (rent/download). The company is backed up by angel investors and has today a team of 10 people with offices in both Stockholm and Gothenburg.

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Free Pass to Nordic Mobile Media Conference

by Miikka Kukkosuo, November 4, 2008 — Leave a Comment

Nordic Mobile Media ConferenceThis is a reminder that ArcticStartup and Nordic Mobile Media Conference are looking for the “most interesting Nordic/Baltic mobile startup”. The winner startup will get 2 free passes to the event in Tallinn, Estonia on December 3-4th. To apply, please tell us why you should be selected by sending mail to mart.kikas [at] aspiro.ee and info [at] arcticstartup.com. As I didn’t remember post the reminder earlier, the time for applications will be extended until this Friday, November 7th. So send in your application if you haven’t already!

In addition to the entrance, the winners will get an exhibition stand in the exhibition hall in the networking/coffee breaks area, along with a table, chairs, electricity and WIFI internet connection for introducing your startup to the conference delegates and to demo what you are doing.

If getting a free pass isn’t your bag, you may also register to the conference on the event web page.

Funding and Training for Finnish and European Companies

by Miikka Kukkosuo, September 30, 2008 — Leave a Comment

Tekes

Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, offers Finnish companies possibility to take part in the UCLA Global Access Program once again this year. In the program MBA students of UCLA will make an international business plan for the companies as their final thesis, focusing on analysis and action plan for entering specific international markets. The program was ranked last year as the best of its kind in the US, and the bar for both participating companies and students is high. There have been yearly around 10 Finnish companies participating in GAP, including e.g. one of the fastest grown firms Openbit and Cidercone.

EurostarsEurostars is an European funding and support program specifically dedicated to creating competitive SMEs that will be leaders in their own sector. The program tries to ignite international collaborative research and innovation projects by easing access to support and funding for growth companies. The program is initiated by EUREKA, pan-European intergovernmental network founded to enhance competitiveness of European businesses. Eurostars offers 400 million euros of R&D funding to SME companies over a six year period. Tekes funds the Finnish participants with 5M euros per year. The next deadline for electronic submission of applications is November 21st 2008. See instructions from Tekes.

Gaming and interactive media companies can also apply for funding of 10,000-100,000 euros for producing product demos and prototypes in the Media 2007 program. The program is aimed at companies developing on and off-line interactive works. Eligible are interactive works for the computer, internet, mobile phone, games console (including handheld), and digital television, that present a substantial degree interactivity, narrative, and innovation. Companies that submit an application must have completed a previous interactive work, or an animation of at least 24 minutes, and prove that the work has been commercially distributed between January 1st 2006 and the date of submission of their application. The next deadline for applying is November 17th.