Skandal! Igen!

Det är sällan man får en sådan "Ja, precis!"-känsla som när man läser Peter Wennblads lysande artikel "Skandal! Igen!" i senaste Neo. Peter har på ett skenbart enkelt vis lyft fram både maktförskjutningen som under senare år ägt rum till mediernas fördel, men kanske ännu viktigare: en del exempel på hur detta missbrukas.

Inte minst Aftonbladet (och senare Expressen) hamnar i centrum, eftersom båda tidningarna konsekvent och öppet bryter emot lagen genom att underlåta att lämna kontrolluppgift för tipspengar man betalar ut. Ursäkten är hänvisning till "källskydd". Man kan i och för sig fråga sig hur hemliga utbetalningar till skyddade källor påverkar dessa källors trovärdighet, eftersom dessa då inte behöver stå till svars för utsagorna - trots att de fått ersättning.

Men det mest anmärkningsvärda är förstås att dessa tidningar bryter emot lagen, och då när det råkar gälla en fråga där tidningarna själva anser att man bör kunna agera på ett visst sätt. Man ställer sig över lagen. Att det är precis denna fråga man manglat fram och tillbaka vad gäller statsråd och riksdagsmän vad gäller hushållsnära tjänster under hösten, låtsas man inte om. Tyvärr inte så otroligt. Men riktigt, riktigt otrevligt.

Peter skriver läsvärt på SvD:s Brännpunkt idag.

Benazir Bhutto

The morning's news of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto really saddened me. Since my wife (and to some parts myself) has been working with projects for rural markets in developing countries this fall, we’ve been traveling in India, China and the Philippines. There are so many who could benefit from reforms in countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, but yesterday’s events really risks a radical increase in the distance between Pakistan and the rest of the world.

Let’s all hope that this tragedy can lead to something good in the end. And Benazir Bhutto will be remembered.

Man of the year

I was choking on my afternoon coffee the other day, when I read that Putin was named "Man of the Year" by Time Magazine. Apparently I was not entirely alone. Johan Norberg writes brilliantly:

"Well, we have seen that before. The man of the year in 1938 was another authoritarian who gave his country national pride."

Hubbub

In about 10 minutes I'll be speaking at Hubbub - a great conference so far. Exciting!

How can we get Sweden in there?

From The Economist.

Great conference so far

It's been a long and fun day at the Web 2.0 summit, but it is by no means over yet. The session and interview with Mark Zuckerberg was (not surprisingly) the most interesting yet.

During lunch I also had time to pick up an iPhone for my friend Johan. As with all Apple products, we are taking well care of it ;)

Off to the Web 2.0 Summit

I am off to the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, filled with excitement about the coming few days. I and my colleague Yavor will meet some old friends, find some new, see a lot of new faces, and also quite a few well-known ones. It is always a blast coming to a place where such a great bunch of talent are crammed together for a few days, creating and discussing ideas and business.

I've also been really lousy at writing anything here for a long time. Last week I went to India (Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore) with my wife Maja and helped her out a bit in her work towards the BoP market. It has been a long time since I learnt so much in such a short period of time. Even though I cannot make comments right now about any of the fantastic and remarkable start-ups we met (which I hope to be able to do soon), I'll stay at saying that Hand in Hand is doing a really wonderful and important job. We had the opportunity to visit both their Chennai headquarters as well as a solid waste management mini-plant in the rural areas around Kancheepuram and one out of soon-to-be 1000(!) citizen centers in Tamil Nadu.