Post SIME memories 2008

SIME is over and I feel a bit sad, a bit like the day after Christmas. Still, the good thing is that I had a great time - and we even got an early Christmas Gift when we won the SIME Award 2008 for "Best E-commerce Company" of the Nordics.

Below my quick notes on SIME memories 2008:

- Morten Lund was great, again, two Johans from Halmstad seem to agree... . The phrase I took away with me this time was: "There’s a fine line between vison and hallucination". Danish one-liner machine.

- Pelle Törnberg gave a down to earth view of the world, Törnberg style. At times he even voiced below the ground sentiment towards the future, for example when saying that he would in the current climate only invest in listed companies (a bit strange when I thought he was spending his time nowadays as a private investor and advisor).

- Talked to Pontus Schultz on the same topic and darn what people close to the financial markets are worried about the future. In a comparison my view of the next few years were optimistic, and then you understand what I am talking about!

- The Music panel with Mia Rose, Stefan Glänzer and Ulf Ekberg was refreshing. In particular Ulfs presentation of the new Ace of Base site, where users are able to remix songs and where users then will be able to vote for what should get on the CD, was a piece of the future.

- Also in the Music panel Stefan Glänzer gave a very unpolitical comment (in a Stockholm perspective) on Spotify not having anything unique to offer. And that they are completly in the hands of the big music labels. I actually agree, even if I love the Spotify service, and I would not take my last 100 million kronors ( :-) ) and put them in to Spotify. Itunes can threat the rights owners to jump, but Spotify has a long long way to that kind of negotiation position.

- Peter Sunde of Pirate Bay was a surprise. At times he seem completly obnoxious, but more than that he was impressively mature with a very clear view of why he is doing what he is doing. When I heard via Morten that Pirate Bay stand for 60% of the BitTorrent traffic on the webb - and that BitTorrent traffic then is 80% of the traffic over all on the Internet - I got amazed. If this is even close to true then it is mind blowing and must make Peter Sunde and his Pirate Bay friends some of the more important and interesting individuals in the online world of today.

- Laughed really hard when I spoke informally with Peter Sandberg of Disruptive and exactly at the time when I said "evil capitalists" in some context, Johan Brenner walks in the room overhearing our conversation with a face saying "talking about me?" More on this and on SIME over all, read Disruptives blogg (Day 1:1, Day 1:2, Day 2:1 and Day 2:2)