The other day I wrote (in Swedish) about Germany making their national image library available under the Creative Commons license. Wow I thought. Then today when I learned that Jesse Dylan, son of Bob Dylan and co-editor of the award winning YesWeCan video (produced with IllWilly) had created a video for Science Commons it striked me that maybe a lot of people doesn’t even know what the Creative Commons licence is.

So, instead of posting Jesse’s Science Commons video, here’s a video explaining what Creative Commons is all about. You should know this and it’s a great video too.

I know. This post almost became spammed with outgoing links. But there were so many sites and people I had to give credit.

Läser idag på Slashdot om ett fantastiskt initiativ från tyska staten. Man har bestämt sig för att donera 100 000 bilder till tyska Wikipedia under det tyska Creative Commons “Attribution-Share Alike 3.0” avtalet. Bilderna sträcker sig från 1860 till nutid. Tydligen är det här bara början. Målet är att dela ut över 11 miljoner bilder!

Det här är otroligt bra gjort och det är bara för Svenska staten att öppna upp arkiven. Ut med ljud, bilder och filmer. Finns ingen anledning att sitta och hålla på det. När ni ändå håller på, dela ut bilderna på Flickr och filmerna på YouTube.

Förresten. Vilken information sitter ditt företag på som passar bättre på nätet än i en gammal bildbank stängd för omvärlden?

As I was reading my stats in my Mint account a site that I hadn’t seen before. Viralvideochart.com stood out. Its a sniffy little thing where you can keep track of the virality of online videos.

The cool thing is that these guys measure virality, not videos shown. So the faster something is being spread, the higher rating. Basically a dashboard for the viral video producer.

Right now, the most viral video is this one:

Bam boom pjoink and that RSS goes straight into my feedreader.

I attended a thing called the Blogger Meetup at SIME today where we all had informal session with Kris Hoet, Joi Ito, Tom Crampton, Dave Sifry, Nico Luma and Bob Stumpel. The talk was mostly why people were blogging, how blogging would evolve in the future and how to make money off it. Absolutely one of the better takeouts from this years SIME (so far) even though I think it could have been more of a meetup rather than a ‘listenup’.

It triggered a though. Why am I blogging?
I started blogging already back in 2002. But I only managed to publish a few post before I grew tired of it. I basically felt as I had nothing to say. It then took a couple of years before I started again. This time I wasn’t really sure what to write about either. But, after a couple of posts I found it that my blog was the perfect place to share my inspirations and thoughts. The actual time it takes to write a post and value if it’s important enough to share made it the perfect filter in terms of remembering things that I must save for a rainy day.

Back in 1997 I had a specific software that made it possible for me to save links and data I found important. The thing was that the database was soon filled with shit. It simply was to easy to just post things into that black hole of mine. Since then I’ve created folders on my computer, fantastic bookmark categorization systems and used tools like Del.icio.us. Every tool has sooner or later become impossible to find things in. The blog however has never failed me. If I think it’s important I’ll blog it.

Not making money ON my blog has always been a golden rule I don’t wanna break. I quite often get approached by companies that want me to blog about something or place links in specific posts or banners on the site. No. Always my answer – NO. Accepting money would question my integrity.

Do I make money OFF my blog? I certainly hope so! Obviously I do think that my blog helps position me as a modern communicator, an innovator and someone with quite an eye for what’s up in terms of communication and advertising. My blog is the perfect CV and company platform combined so to say.

So, to sum it up: My blog is my filter, it’s my competence and it’s the professional me.

What is your blog to you?

ps. See, I saved some great links, share some knowledge and had a nice time in the SIME bar.

Today Swedish start-up Spotify has launched their music service that has been in Beta for quite a long time. In the morning they were spreading the news that they had signed groundbreaking licensing deals with companies including Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, EMI Music, Warner Music Group, Merlin, The Orchard and Bonnier Amigo. 

Spotify is by far the best independent music service out there. The fact that you find most music you are looking for and that you can create your own playlists, share em’ etc makes it a killer application.

If you wanna get hold of the free version that features advertising you still have to stand in line for an invite. But the if you sign up for a Premium edition you get unlimited music access without advertising. On top of that, signing up for premium today allows you not only to jump the queue to get Spotify, but you will also get 2 invites to share with your friends.

I noticed the advertising in Spotify this morning when Ulf from McDonalds interupted me listening to Robyn. Not a pleasant surprise I must say. I haven’t really decided if I think Spotify will get the spread it deserves if they keep on interrupting music with adversing. 999:- a year is quite a lot of money for teenagers and they’re the source of spreading this thing.

But on the other hand, I’ve already taken the descision to sign up for a Premium myself. I would have liked to be able to pay with PayPal though.

Spotify Rocks!