Sweden Allows citizens to take over its Official Twitter Account

With Twitter is now flourishing as a well-established part of the Internet landscape, it’s increasingly difficult to make a splash with a truly innovative marketing campaign using the service. The country of Sweden may have managed that with a new project that sees a different citizen take over its official Twitter account every week.

“No one owns the brand of Sweden more than its people. With this initiative we let them show their Sweden to the world,” says Thomas Brühl, the CEO of the country’s tourism agency VisitSweden.

Curators of Sweden is certainly an interesting idea; a variety of Swedes, including an editorial writer, a founder of an advertising agency with his own farm, a suburban writer, a priest, a teacher and a coffee-drinking trucker lesbian are all lined up to take over the account in coming weeks. The plan is that they will portray a diverse range of values, skills and ideas from across the country.

However, it’s a bold step to jump from what Twitter users may reasonably expect a tourism account to offer (news, offers and recommendations of places to visit) to what Sweden’s first ‘curator’ is offering. From his first tweet onwards …

 …he’s tweeted about everything from touching personal news…

to humour that not everyone will appreciate.

Yes, it seems that the ‘curators’ won’t be restricted to tourism-friendly soundbites – it looks like they can pretty much say what they like. Not everyone’s happy with it though – it has already led one Swede living abroad in London to criticise her country’s approach as “a disgrace“.

It’s certainly going to be odd for casual visitors to stumble upon links to humorous photographs and jokes about the Pope on the official Swedish tourism Twitter account, but that aside, it certainly gets people talking about the country and, after all, the project’s aim is clear from its website:

“The idea is that the curators, through their tweets, create interest and arouse curiosity for Sweden and the wide range the country has to offer. The expectation is that the curators will paint a picture of Sweden, different to that usually obtained through traditional media.”

In that respect, it’s a success – even if it won’t please everyone.

US approves Google's $400 mn acquisition of Admeld

The US Justice Department on Friday approved Google's $400 million acquisition of Admeld, a company that provides an online advertising platform for publishers. 

The Justice Department said that a review of the transaction by its antitrust division had concluded that it was "not likely to substantially lessen competition in the sale of display advertising." 

"Although the Antitrust Division concluded that this particular transaction was unlikely to cause consumer harm, the division will continue to be vigilant in the enforcement of the antitrust laws to protect competition in display and other forms of online advertising," the department said in a statement. 

Google announced the acquisition of Admeld in June. The exact purchase price was not revealed but various reports put it at around $400 million. 

Mountain View, California-based Google makes most of its money from advertising tied to Internet search but is seeking to carve out a bigger slice of the market for display advertising, which includes rich media, digital video and banner ads. 

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, US online advertising revenue rose 15 percent last year to a record $26 billion with display ads accounting for 38 percent of the total. 

According to digital marketing firm eMarketer, Facebook is on track to pass Yahoo! in US display advertising revenue this year while Google will also gain market share. 

Facebook's share of US online display ad revenue will grow to 17.7 percent this year, up from 12.2 percent last year, while Yahoo!'s share is expected to decline to 13.1 percent in 2011 from 14.4 percent last year, eMarketer said. 

Google's share of US display advertising revenue will grow to 9.3 percent this year from 8.6 percent last year, eMarketer said. 

Google has come in for increasing regulatory review in the United States and Europe as it has grown from a scrappy startup into an Internet titan. 

Among the deals that have drawn scrutiny are Google's $3.1 billion purchase of online ad firm DoubleClick, its $750 million buy of mobile ad network AdMob and its $700 million acquisition of flight data company ITA Software. 

In 2008, Google was forced to drop plans for a joint search advertising partnership with Yahoo! amid opposition from the Justice Department. Google is also currently cooperating with a US Federal Trade Commission probe into its search and advertising business. 

Founded in 2007, Admeld describes its mission on its website as providing publishers with "the cutting edge of advertising technology, enabling them to maximize their revenue and sell their inventory smarter and safer." 

Besides its headquarters in New York, the company also has offices in San Francisco, London, Berlin and Toronto. Admeld's 500 customers around the world include FOX News, Hearst Television, Discovery and The Weather Channel.