This column was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on March 4th, 2021. The battle for internet advertising is escalating. But that Google is changing the technology that determines which ads you see is not only done to prevent tougher rules – it is also done to make it more difficult for smaller competitors. The question of your ad data has polarized Silicon Valley for many years. On one side you have Apple, which is […]
This column was first published in SvD Kultur, in Swedish, on March 1st, 2021. The legendary auction house Christie’s is selling a digital work of art and thus joining a trend that is growing explosively. The items are suddenly sold for record sums. Will it last? $1.4 million in seven minutes. This is how much the American artist Micah Johnson sold his new digital artwork “Genesis.001” for recently. But unlike a traditional auction, 1,402 different people […]
This column was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on February 22nd, 2021. From having lived in symbiosis – to now being in open conflict. The media companies may have emerged victorious from the first round against the tech giants, but it risks becoming an expensive story that leaves few, if any, winners, writes SvD’s tech analyst Björn Jeffery. “I get it, Facebook is a terrible, terrible company and deserves lots of blame for lots of bad things that […]
This column was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on February 18th, 2021. The hysteria has barely subsided before it is time for the political aftermath. But when the Game Stop mess now reaches Congress, there’s a big risk that things derail again. The legislator’s knowledge about the internet is simply too low, writes SvD’s Björn Jeffery who lists three questions he wishes they would ask. A nervous Mark Zuckerberg was wearing a blue suit, […]
This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on February 13th, 2021. It didn’t even take a week from Mark Zuckerberg guest starring on Clubhouse to the news that Facebook was developing a clone. The pattern of cloning products is recognizable – but rarely works. SvD’s tech analyst Björn Jeffery explains why. In April 2012, Kevin Systrom received an unusual proposal. Twitter wanted to buy his company Instagram, which at the time had only […]
This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on February 4th, 2021. Live streamed portfolio analysis. Derivatives as entertainment. The Wall Street Bets forum represents a new generation of stock traders who have borrowed their influences from the computer game world. At the same time as the hedge funds was tearing their hair over extreme losses in Gamestop, a father of small children in Boston, wearing a headband, sat and drank champagne for seven […]
This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on January 28th, 2021. First the Capitol was stormed by users from internet forums. Now it’s Wall Street’s turn. The Gamestop story is a perfect storm of pent-up anger and risky financial instruments that are now traded at the touch of a button. In the early 2000s, the American journalist James Surowiecki wrote an acclaimed book called “The wisdom of crowds”. His thesis was that a […]
This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on January 28th, 2021. Elon Musk wanted to sell Tesla – but did not even get a meeting with Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. Today, they are about to become competitors instead. But both have a common view on how the cars of the future will be developed – electric and self-driving. With today’s share price, it feels like ancient history. But in 2013, things looked dark […]
This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on January 23rd, 2021. “I think he’s a real problem.” Joe Biden’s statement about Mark Zuckerberg means that the gloves are off in the battle between Washington and Silicon Valley. Suddenly, almost everything felt normal again. Just a couple of hours had passed since Joe Biden took over as president when Twitter began filling up with jokes. Not least thanks to the historical photos of Bernie […]
This analysis was first published in SvD Näringsliv, in Swedish, on January 15th, 2021. The uncertainty about what applies when infrastructure giants such as Amazon Web Services shuts down individual companies benefits no one. In August 2017, after the riots in Charlottesville, USA, Cloudflare decided to shut down the Nazi site The Daily Stormer. Cloudfare is a company that provides cloud services and in a blog post, its CEO, Matthew Prince, explained his actions: Like a […]
