Norwegian crown princess joins Twitter
Norway’s popular crown princess Mette-Marit joined Twitter this Friday, having tweeted irregularly at the official crown prince and princess’ account @Kronprinsparet for over a year.
Crown prince Haakon himself announced his wife’s new Twitter presence from the @Kronprinsparet account, tweeting that “the missis now has her own Twitter account. Follow her!” on Friday.
12,000 followers in a day
And a lot of Twitter users have followed his lead – in the day since the crown princess announced her presence in the Twitterverse, she has amassed over 12,000 followers. She profiles herself as “a proud mother of three & dedicated book worm”.
Screen shot of crown princess Mette-Marit's Twitter profile page.
Tweets herself
Crown princess Mette-Marit says on Twitter that she does all her tweeting herself, and is already engaging in conversation with other Twitter users – and using hashtags. Today, she celebrated the 8th birthday of her daughter, princess Ingrid Alexandra, by tweeting her a link to the poem “A Note” by Polish poet Wislava Szymborska.
The Norwegian crown prince and princess have been using social media for their humanitary and royal duties for a few years, and hired a social media advisor back in 2010.
Any other Nordic royal family members or dignitaries on Twitter or Facebook? Leave me a hint in the comments section!
Swedish newspaper in the forefront of citizen journalism
Swedish regional newspaper Norran may be celebrating its 100th anniversary, but it’s no old goner of a newspaper. Au contraire, it’s right up there in the forefront of social newsmaking.
Opened the news process
Last summer, the Norran editorial staff opened up their newsmaking process by blogging and tweeting about the stories they were working on for the next edition and inviting readers to bring their insights and contributions to their journalism.
This has been a success, and Norran was one of the major inspirations for news giant The Guardian’s opening their newslists to the public this fall. (More on that project here.)
Citizen journalism goes one step further
And now, Norran are taking integrated newsmaking one step further. This month, they will be inviting readers to contribute in a whole new online news environment called Norran Media Lab.
The new project will allow readers to publish their own material – text, pictures, games, or videos – on the Norran website, allowing them to showcase their work to the newspaper’s large online readership.
Targets young readers
This “make your own news” initiative is modeled on Citizenside.com and is aimed specifically at young readers. “This can also be a means for your class to develop further projects from school,” Norran writes in its call for test contributors. And while all material will be moderated by Norran staff before publishing, the newspaper promises that just about anyone can become a Norran reporter in the new media lab.
- We wanted to do something that both strengthens our brand and engages a group of the population many publishing houses, ourselves included, want to reach, Oscar Broström, the Media Lab project manager, said to Dagens Media.
The new site is now in alfa, and the beta version is expected next week, according to Dagens Media.
(Thanks to the ever observant Peter Einarsson for sharing the news!)
Will Denmark’s new polar bear baby become a Facebook sensation?
Denmark’s new darling is polar bear baby Siku, who was born November 22 in the Skandinavisk Dyrepark zoo. His mother didn’t have enough milk to sustain her new, super cute offspring. If he stayed with the mother, Ilka, he would surely die – so the zoo administration decided to try to raise Siku themselves.
The survival of baby Siku is now in the hands of zoo director Frank Vigh-Larsen. The tiny creature needs to be fed from a bottle eight times a day – and it is working, he has grown by almost two kilos since he was born.
“Siku” means “Ocean ice” in Greenlandic. The zoo administrators hope that, if Siku reaches maturity, he can be a part of the international breeding programme for polar bears that zoos around the world participate in. The arctic bear is an endangered species, and massive efforts are being made to ensure the future of these magnificent animals.
Being a bottle-baby of the social media age, you can of course follow Siku on Facebook. Will this become Northern Europe’s newest Facebook sensation? The cuteness factor should certainly ensure shareability. And you can enjoy more photos of Siku at the zoo homepage. He has already been a massive hit on the BBC website and on the Mirror site.
And on that note, I wish all readers of Social Media Nordic a very happy Christmas!
Twitter in Denmark doubles in a year
Denmark has seen a whopping 100% increase in Twitter users in the last year. A yearly update by Overskrift.dk shows that Denmark now has approximately 55.000 Twitter users, up from 28.000 users a year ago.
Despite the growth, Twitter activity is still very unevenly distributed among Danes. The 625 most active users, or 1,2 %, create half the tweets in the Danish Twittersphere. In total, the Danes produce 22.000 tweets every day, or more than half a million tweets each month.
Screenshot of Denmark's Twitter queen's profile.
Denmark’s undisputed Twitter queen is tennis professional Caroline Wozniacki, who can boast of having almost 247.000 followers. NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen is a very distant second with just over 27.000 followers.
(A big thanks to Ernst Poulsen for tweeting me the Overskrift.dk update!)
Angry SAAB fans flood General Motors on Facebook
Fans of Swedish car brand SAAB are turning to Facebook to vent their frustrations after the company was declared bankrupt by a Swedish court on Monday.
The SAAB fans are angry. They are resentful. And they are making themselves heard on former SAAB owner General Motors’ Facebook page.
Screeshot from the GM Facebook page
The spontaneous displays of nonaffection started yesterday, and have gotten increasingly bad. There has even been published a photo of GM chairman Daniel Akerson as Hitler. A hate group on Facebook is currently recruiting members to a boycott of General Motors.
So far, there has been little or no reaction from GM, neither on Facebook nor elsewhere. To stay updated on the emerging crisis, I suggest following Hans Kullin’s blog which seems to be pretty up-to-date on the developments (as usual).
Screenshot from the GM Facebook page
(Another hat tip to Peter Einarsson for cuing me into the situation!)
Twitter launches Danish, Finnish, Norwegian version
In a quiet tweet in the nighttime (Scandinavian nighttime, that is), Twitter has announced the launch of a Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish language edition:
I am trying to get my hands on a complete list over available languages, and will update this asap.
This adds to the growing list of social media services available in Nordic languages, following the inclusion of Swedish in the LinkedIn language community last month.
UPDATE:
I have been researching the reactions to the new Nordic Twitter versions from users.
Norway:
A few users in Norway are quite vocal in their dislike of the translation – or, rather, of the translation method.
The new translations have been crowdsourced, and terms have been suggested and voted on by the users themselves. This has caused some rather peculiar translations and frequent angloisms in the Norwegian version.
For instance, the “favorite” function (as in: @username just favorited your tweet) has been translated into “@username favoriserte din tweet”. (In Norwegian, the verb “favorisere” means something slightly different than “marking as a favorite” – it’s more or less the verb for giving someone special treatment.) Other important elements of Twitter, such as the Retweet function, haven’t been translated at all – it’s still called retweeting in Norwegian, when the term for forwarding something (the term used for emails) is suggested by several users as a preferable term.
A user who has been involved in the translation tweets that the crowdsourcing has been frustrating, and feels that several good suggestions for translations have been rejected.
“You’d think Twitter could afford to hire professional help,” tweets Pål Nedregotten, head of digital development at Norwegian media house A-pressen.
Other users are pleased with the Norwegian launch, but say they wish the “trending topic” list would add a Norwegian filter soon.
Denmark/Finland:
My Twitter network is much larger in Norway than in Denmark or Finland. But I have been on the lookout for user reactions to “new Twitter”. So far, reactions are neutral or non-existent, according to my sources.
“Not much talk about Danish Twitter yet, and reactions are mostly neutral,” tweets Danish new media journalist Ernst Poulsen when I ask.
I will update this post again if I come across more Danish reactions or hear from my Finnish contacts. In the meantime: Have you seen your local-language Twitter edition? What do you think of it?
40 % of Norwegian toddlers use smartphones or tablets
Four out of ten Norwegian children under the age of three use tablets or smartphones, a new report from the Norwegian Centre for ICT in Education reveals.
Toddlers are experienced tablet and smartphone users, a Norwegian report reveals.
If you count children aged six or less, a whopping 60 % have used touch-control screens. More than half the children have their touch-screen debut before they are four years old. 14 % of the first-time users are actually just one year old.
- Having evidence that children this young are experienced digital users provides exciting new possibilities for kindergartens and new teaching methods, project manager Barbro Hardersen said to Norwegian news agency NTB.
Norwegian authorities are quite positive to introducing children to technology at an early age. In the current framework for the kindergarten sector, the Norwegian Department for Education states that “children should experience digital tools as a source for play, communication and learning”.
This places new demands on early-education teachers’ digital competences, a challenge the authorities are well aware of:
- If kindergarten employees are able to use digital tools in their everyday work, they can be included in different teaching activities, such as digital stories or films, using GPS, or using applications for themes discussed in the kindergarten. If the child enjoys climbing trees, send a camera up the tree with them so you can watch and talk about their experience from the treetop later on, Hardersen said.
(Photo: David Boyle on Flickr/CC-BY-2.0)
@Sweden now controlled by the Swedish people
The people of Sweden have officially taken over the @Sweden Twitter account, according to Mashable. This is not the result of a digital coup, but applauded by the Swedish government.
The Swedish people - here represented by cheering soccer fans - now control their own Twitter destiny. (Photo: andregustavo on Flickr/CC-BY-2.0)
The @Sweden handle has been controlled by the national tourist agency, VisitSweden, since 2009. But through the project Curators of Sweden, the Twitterverse presence of Sweden is now handed over to the people. A string of different contributors will portray the national character online.
- No one owns the brand of Sweden more than its people. With this initiative we let them show their Sweden to the world, VisitSweden CEO Thomas Brühl said to Mashable.
The curators have been chosen because they represent Sweden’s values and skills, such as gay rights, fashion, design and innovation. Among the chosen are an ad agency founder who owns a farm, a suburban writer, a priest, a teacher and a coffee-drinking lesbian trucker.
I look forward to following the @Sweden account and will be sure to add it to my Twitter stream!
UPDATE: Swedish PR blogger Hans Kullin has made an exellent study of some of the recent content on @Sweden. Highly recommended reading – some of it is almost shocking, other items highly amusing.
