Author: Björn Jeffery

Designing with asymmetry: Enabling people to share an experience in different ways

July 15, 2020
by Björn Jeffery
The Daily

Letting everyone have the same experience sounds good and fair. In reality, this way of designing excludes people that are different, or have different circumstances. Allowing experiences to be asymmetric can be a way of sharing without having to be identical. When I worked in media research many years ago, a common consumer question was “What kind of TV do you watch?“. The answer was almost always “documentaries“. You could then place an ethnographer in […]

Next stop: Malmö, Sweden

July 8, 2020
by Björn Jeffery
The Daily

In the spring of 2012, I moved to San Francisco to start the US office for Toca Boca. My wife, Miriam, followed shortly thereafter and we sent ten boxes of stuff with UPS. We didn’t know how long we would stay and took one year at a time. A few weeks ago, I moved back to Sweden. To Malmö, next to Copenhagen, more specifically. A little more than eight years after I left. This time […]

Joining the board of Rovio

May 22, 2020
by Björn Jeffery
The Daily

A few weeks ago I was elected to join the board of Rovio, the gaming and entertainment company most known for Angry Birds. I am an independent board member in the company that is listed on the NASDAQ Helsinki stock exchange ($ROVIO). Rovio is a company I have followed and admired for many years. They were pioneers in building the first global family brand through mobile. In later years, they have gone through a big […]

The story of Naspers & Tencent

February 19, 2020
by Björn Jeffery
Newsletters

Since 2008, I have had a mild obsession with a South African media company called Naspers. They are most known for being a very early investor in Tencent. In 2001, they bought a 46.5% stake for $32 million. 18 years later, it was worth $133 billion. It is likely one of the best investments of all time. But success can be a double edged sword. This remarkable investment led to a meteoric rise of Naspers […]

The double edged sword of success: Understanding Naspers and their Tencent investment

February 19, 2020
by Björn Jeffery
The Daily

“The investment strategy at the time was to find a replacement revenue source for its traditional print media business – which it forecast would decline in the advent of digital media” That’s a quote from an article describing Naspers, a South African media company, in the 1980s. Koos Bekker – now the Chairman – had suggested that there was potential for a new type of pay TV in South Africa, similar to HBO. The narrative […]

A tribute to Joan Ganz Cooney

February 4, 2020
by Björn Jeffery
The Daily

As a celebration of Joan Ganz Cooney’s first report on kids and media (re-issued here), I wrote a post for their blog. It is about finding a spark of inspiration in times where things might seem a little bleak. A bit like the kids app market today. Here’s my attempt to remember the big picture and the great opportunities that are ahead: At times like this, it is important to remember the big picture. We […]

2019 without review

December 19, 2019
by Björn Jeffery
The Daily

Similarly to last year, I will not be writing a summary of 2019. Sharing less over the year has been surprisingly liberating. For me, it has forced more deliberate attention to a few selected things instead. My writing, for instance. That being said, I do often get asked what I do all day. I tend to answer “surprisingly little” which is somewhat correct but mostly an unexpected way of answering an expected question. A more […]

Two books, two podcasts, two albums + holiday reading

December 19, 2019
by Björn Jeffery
Newsletters

Friends, I’d like to thank you for reading this newly launched newsletter. I hope you’ve found a few things of interest, and the odd unexpected delight too. I also want to send over some holiday recommendations since this is a time to relax and catch up on things. Thank you for coming with me this far. Happy Holidays, Björn Things I’ve written in 2019 Some of this may be a repeat, but here are the […]

One analysis, two podcasts + two ways to learn about Costco(!)

November 13, 2019
by Björn Jeffery
Newsletters

Today, Disney+ launches in the US. It’s the latest entrant to the streaming wars, but hardly the last one. The video streaming market is also changing as new alliances form between media companies and telcos. Huge acquisitions and partnerships have been announced. This is a familiar story. In my latest analysis piece, I make the case that it is in fact a loop that most telcos are stuck in. I hope you like it. Björn […]

The Telco Identity Loop: What Disney+ does for Verizon

November 12, 2019
by Björn Jeffery
The Daily

May 2015. Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL, is on CNBC. He is wearing a navy blazer, no tie, blue shirt. He’s talking fast, and in bursts of excited management speak. He has a lot to be excited about. It has just been announced that Verizon is going to buy AOL for $4.4 billion. This is of course good news for Mr Armstrong. CNBC anchor, Andrew Ross Sorkin, asks him the key question for the […]