This is starting to become a habit. Every now and then I find an artist, designer, photographer etc that just blows me away. I crave for a project that gives me the opportunity to call these guys up and work with them.

OwaikeO is such a guy. His real name is Ahmed Al-Refaie, he’s 21 and was born and raised in Kuwait. His style and touch is something else. Don’t you agree!

He is just about to launch his own website. But until then, enjoy his gallery here. There’s also a little interview with him on that same site.

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“Creativity is the opposite of routine” - Unknown.

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So, the next cool thing from Google is coming our way. Last week, rumors started to spread that something is up over at Google. A new cool thing is coming our way, but what?

My brain went wild. What can they possible launch now that they haven’t launched yet. A new OS? IPTV, Google Finances (something I miss in the apps suite)…but I never thought once about Google Chrome, a new open source browser based on Webkit. Since Firefox has grown quite popular and the latest release is actually very good I thought Google would keep their hands of that market. But once again, Google shows that they will continue to conquer every part of the web.

Buzz PR

What’s almost cooler than the actual browser (that is not launched yet) is the fact that Google started to Buzz PR their new browser in a quite innovative way - old fashioned cartoons.

Philipp Lenssen over at Google Blogoscoped was sent a comic book in his ordinary mail that explained the technical details into the Google Chrome projects. Philipp has written a nice post on the features of Chrome. He’s also been very nice and scanned the entire book and put it up here for you guys to read.

Nice PR trick

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Wise word from Steve Jobs as he held his speech to the employees at Apple when returning to the company 1997.

Thanks Alexander for the tip. 

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It’s friday afternoon and I just gotta get this out of my head. Have you ever wondered why you enjoy having a cup of coffee?

Don’t know about you, but many times a day I just feel I gotta get a cup of coffee. The same feeling occurs on a thursday and friday afternoon, but this time it’s a beer that signals the neurons in my brain. 

Basically what happens is your brain probably signals that it wants you to relax and the answer is a cup of coffee (or tea or smoothies) since thats what you usually do when you relax in the middle of the day at work. A strong association. It’s funny cause I remember my first Beer or my first cup of Coffee, and the experience wasn’t a nice one. Instead it was rather disgusting. They both tasted like shit.

This is what we gotta do when we create communication. We have to associate things people don’t necessary like with something they do like. This way we’ll move those associations onto the brand/product/object that we market. 

I’ve taken part in creating many Flash sites, but have always tried to make sure people don’t have to wait for the experience. Today, many price winners on competitions like Cannes Lions take forever to load. So, when you are part of the jury, the agencies instead post a video that showcases the campaigns. This way agencies make sure that judges in Cannes, Clio, Epica, Eurobest, NYF, LIA, DA&D and others don’t have to wait for that super duper flash site to load. Basically, the experience is totally overlooked.

So, do you think you would enjoy that Espresso of yours if it involved a wait that was measured in % and took 2 minutes one time and 4 the next and then 3.

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I presented an idea in front of the board members of a leading Swedish company a while ago when one of them suddenly, quite downgrading, commented on the lack of history in terms of best practise comparison in my case.

“How can you even suggest an idea that isn’t supported with at least 5 years of data” - said the not so Internet friendly gentleman in the grey suit.

My answer was of course that Facebook and YouTube didn’t even exist 5 years ago. We have to think different, it’s a new world that doesn’t go by the same business rules that’s been around for ages.

The grey suit then replied - “Yes, but the service you’ve told us about is already out there”

“So was MySpace…”

Two days ago Dave Morin, the company’s Senior Platform Manager twittered that Facebook has signed up 100 000 000 users. ReadWriteWeb, that made me notice the article, suggests that Facebook has fallen behind in terms of innovation.

  Hmm. That was my own thought about Facebook a couple of month ago, but lately I actually think the Facebook service has matured the last couple of month and it seems they are starting to get their act together again. There is definetely a change in user behaviour. In february and march this year, Facebook felt quite dead but now it’s revitalised thanks to small but significant changes. Most of these changes consist of usability rather than any specific applications.

So, if applications were the things that drove the growth of Facebook, i think usability and simplicity will be the things that makes Facebook persist.

With 100 000 000 users you ought find some good ways to earn money huh? Google did with adwords. Facebook has tried some different things altough I don’t think we’ve seen the money machine yet.

Congratulations Facebook on a fantastic job.

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FontStruct is the ultimate playground if you wanna get into creating your own fonts.

Online and all! Go.

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The other day I had to switch phone numbers since I got myself an iPhone 3G. The new number is +46 70 654 90 10.

The fact that this post will be picked up by LinkedIn, Plaxo, Friendfeed, Twingly, Facebook, Jaiku, Tumblr and probably another 20 different social networking services connected to my RSS feed makes me hope that people actually will write down my new phone number.

Why don’t you call if you have something fun to speak about.

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Today ReadWriteWeb made me notice the fact that Nielsen Online has published a study of online Britons under age 23 and their favorite sites. Swedish Stardoll is right up there on top! Great work!

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A psychologist would probably say I was stressed due to the fact that Sweden has totally failed in the Olympics this year. I say, I’m just having fun.

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My scotch whisky blog keeps on jumping back and forth from page 2 to page 9 on the global Google.com search engine when you search for ‘whisky’ and it makes me go mad.

I’ve tried every trick in the (SEO) book to keep it steady on that second page since that drives about 1-2000 unique visitors a day. Then today I found the SEO pyramid made by Matt McGee. Now I’m filled with confidence. I will succeed!

You should head over there and climb it.

ps. While you’re at it. Take some time and visit Coach John Wooden’s pyramid of success. That one is a chocolate bar!

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