I wrote the post below 11 years ago – in 2007 – for a publication called David Report. I recently found it by accident and was struck by how some of these themes have continued with me since then. The thinking about specific, yet somewhat mundane, knowledge as a currency. As something valuable to trade, store, and use – and not to waste. Information wants to be free but getting there isn’t always a straight […]
It has been six months since I left Toca Boca, and it is time for my next chapter. Today, I am starting my own practice focused on digital strategy and consumer culture. I am interested in the near future and how to develop products and services that fit within it. I think this is best done by thoroughly understanding mobile and web, and adding to that a broader understanding of culture and its impact on […]
A few months ago, James Bridle wrote a widely spread Medium post about all of the awful things on YouTube Kids. It started an avalanche that is still rolling. Just the other day, Business Insider wrote that the app was recommending conspiracy videos to kids. This is of course terrible. But it is hardly a surprise. Anyone that has used the app for more than five minutes knows that it is full of material that […]
2017 was the year when I left my job and decided to take a break. I’m still enjoying it actually. I needed some space to clear out the old and start priming my mind for thinking new things. I started feeling stupid and uninteresting which is something that I really, really disliked. This is gradually getting better. I’m happy that I made the decision to take this time and think I will look back at […]
After a lot of consideration, I have decided to step down as CEO of Toca Boca. I told the team this morning. It has been seven years since I co-founded the company together with Emil Ovemar. And to be perfectly honest, I need a bit of a break to recharge and figure out what I should be doing next. My own family has also recently expanded so I look forward to spending more time with […]
One of the pieces in Toca Boca’s lively new line of kids’ clothes—debuting in 1,700 Target stores nationwide later this month—is a coral-colored T-shirt of a mean-mugging sloth donning a baseball cap, with the word “Fast” printed underneath. It’s a piece that the company has found tested well across ages and genders, from younger girls to those harder-to-engage 9- and 10-year-old boys. As Mathilda Engman, Toca Boca’s design director, puts it, “It’s a silly humor and quirkiness that resonates […]
Chief Executive Jeff Bezos says he recently thought a new show the Amazon Studios team was considering was too boring and complicated to produce. But he gave it the green light anyway because the team thought it had potential.Mr. Bezos told his team, “I disagree and commit and hope it becomes the most watched thing we’ve ever made,” he wrote in a shareholder letter published Wednesday. “Consider how much slower this decision cycle would have […]
I promised a second post about the App Store charts and that is coming. But over the past days it has become clear that standing up this madness can’t wait. I wrote a statement about it at Toca Boca because it goes against so much of what we believe in. Quoted below: From Toca Boca’s founding and forward we have made digital toys for kids all over the world. We intentionally design products that work […]
Just before the new year, Nielsen published a list of the top smartphone apps of 2016. The list is based on average unique users which is a way of measuring, although it would have a hard time scaling to a longer list due to the lack of data (the sample is 9,000 panelists). Nielsen image, with my highlighting on the right. More interesting is the ownership of the apps and their respective business models. There are […]
stoweboyd: I’ve been late to the prediction game, but I will riff on some ideas inspired by recent events. Some of these are a bit fabulous, but bear with me: what is coming could wind up being much more strange than these vignettes. (Numbered but not ordered in any particular way.) Work chat will continue to dominate the market for enterprise ‘collaboration’, and AI-based ‘team members’ with deep learning skill sets will become commonplace, building on chatbot […]
