Behind the sceenes with the eGov geeks at FarmSubsidy

It’s been fascinating to get a peek into the word of the geeks behind (and connected) to FarmSubsidy the last few days. They’ve been running the European Open Data Summit here in Brussels, headed by Jack Thurston, and later today they will arrange a press conference with the tempting title “Who wants to be a … Continue reading →

European Parliament – music copyright extended to 70 years

I’m disappointed, but not surprised. The EP has voted to extend music copyrights 20 more years compared to today (50 years). The original suggestion was an extension from 50 to 95 year, but that got changed during the voting in Strasbourg today. I’ve written an article about copyrights vs. creativity that will appear in tomorrow’s … Continue reading →

New site for Europatweets

I wrote recently about how you can follow tweets from politicians in the American Congress, British politicians at Westminister, Swedish politicians at Riksdagen and Danish politicians at Folketinget. Now, you can also follow tweets from MEPs, Members of the European Parliament, created by Belgian Xavier, whom I recently met, and two others. The German politician … Continue reading →

How political are political Facebook groups?

Another blog in my little mini-series, Social media for social change.The two previous were about the Twitter storm that hit Moltemyr skole and the social media/fundraising event Twestival. We do know that people use Facebook for all kinds of activities, raising money to cancer sick children (started by the sister of a friend of mine), … Continue reading →

Blogging at Europabloggen and OJB.com

This is the week of multitasking – not too unusual in my world. I’ve started blogging at Europabloggen, a blog about Europe and EU, from a Norwegian perspective (sounds like a contradiction, you say?). Oslo/Berlin-based journalists Olav Anders Øvrebø and Dag Yngland are the two other contributors. As you can see, Europabloggen is just at … Continue reading →

The law of the internet – Swedish pirates, copyrights and the EU

For your copyright/freedom geeks out there, wake up, these are the days! Some major trials are taking place in several countries, they might change the way we are using the internet/consuming content. I’ll give you some links from the few cases I’ve followed lately, I’m sure there are many more (please send me links for … Continue reading →

Artist poking fun at EU

Finally some fun controversy in the EU. All created by a huge installation in the EC Council, called Entropa, made by the Czech artist David Cerny (warning: Crazy website). The idea was to portray stereotypes of the 27 different member countries, made by 27 different artist from each of the member countries. Apparently, Cerny changed … Continue reading →

Dirt and beauty in Mexico City – and why EU should care about the the dirty parts

Christmas in Mexico is quite something. Instead of listening to Norwegian choir boys and watching the white landscape, which I normally do, we listened to an incredible loud parrot and watched neon lit palms in the mild evening breeze. The occasion was a family wedding in Mexico city, and what better excuse to visit one … Continue reading →

Lessons learned from mySociety

I have an article (in Norwegian) about mySociety, eDemocracy, digital tools and how Norwegian politicians are considering using these tools in Magasinet, Dagbladet today. Let me know if you have any opinions on these matters. Talking about mySociety  –  a Romanian web site about how members of the European Parliament vote (similar to mySociety’s TheyWorkForYou) … Continue reading →

Three social media developments: Bild, European Citizens’ Consultations and Norwegian Facebook debate

Bildt, Germany’s largest newspaper, is partnering up with Lidl to sell cheap digital cameras to citizen journalists; EU has released a new citizen “portal”; Norwegian debate: can journalists be “fan” of politicians on Facebook? Bild wants to expand by using citizen journalists. According to Herald Tribune, potential Bild-citizen journalists can buy a digital camera at … Continue reading →

Europeana’s embarrasing crash

Europeana, Europe’s new digital library, crashed within 24 hours after the release on Nov. 20th. 10 million hits an hour drove the servers to the ground, according to the European Commission. Mona Lisa’s popularity is to blame. According to the website, “Europeana will re-open as soon as possible”, probably in the middle of December, according … Continue reading →

Chinese activist receives EU’s Sakharov prize

EU dared what the Norwegian Nobel Committee didn’t. AIDS and environmental activist Hu Jia has received the European Parliament’s Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought. Here are some of the global blogger’s reactions. One of China’s most famous bloggers, Isaac Mao, has written about Hu Jia and his wife Zeng Jinyan’s struggles for freedom earlier. … Continue reading →

Did Iceland receive an ice cold shoulder?

It is chilly in Reykjavik, only 6 degrees right now. And as all of us know, the Icelandic economy has frozen up, badly. It is so bad that even the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso sent out a statement regarding Iceland tonight (I can’t find it online yet, I got it through … Continue reading →

Economics 1.0 for journalists

This fall, economics stopped being dry and boring (at least for me), and everyone started paying intense attention. Some even too much.  But what the heck is going on and is still shaking our ground? Why has the financial crisis (which has been called earth quake, monster, train) hit so hard, now? And how come … Continue reading →

Sarkozy’s “three-strikes-and-out” is OUT in EU

Good news for internet users – bad news for content providers (ex. IFPI and the recording industry). The French internet proposal to create a class of digital outcast, also called “three-strikes” (or graduated response) has been turned down by the EU, both the commission (Wednesday this week), and the parliament (September 24th). According to the … Continue reading →

Help me update the list of Norwegian EU bloggers

These last few days, I’ve come across a few interesting Scandinavian EU blogs. Recently, Percy Westerlund (who is Swedish) , ambassador for the European Commission in Norway, started his own blog, which I think is a great idea. He writes in his first blog post (in Norwegian) that the blog is a way for him … Continue reading →

The Icelandic love for the Euro

When everyone is turning their eyes toward the global economic crisis unfolding with epicentre in the US, a little earthquake is shaking things up on Iceland. A warned earthquake, though. I’ve been interested in the euro/EU discussion on Iceland for quite some time, and now, new Euro events are getting attention on the saga island. … Continue reading →

Google Chrome, sceptic Irish media, Banksy and copyrights

Good links for you! Everybody (eh, not my mother) talks about the new Google browser Chrome these days. I will download it today, ars technica has a thorough review of it, if you prefer to get your Chrome info in a cartoon, a guy called Scott McCloud has already done the job. Ireland’s media have … Continue reading →

The Kosovo/South Ossetia rethoric and old Europe

Problems for EU – right now and in the near future: EUobserver has a good article today about how EU and Moscow have switched sides in the retoric regarding independence in recent cases such as Kosovo, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Do you have recommendations for good readings on the principle of “territorial integrity”? The European … Continue reading →

Norwegian EU bloggers

The Norwegian EU delegation has a good article (in Norwegian) about Norwegian bloggers who are blogging about EU. When reading Norwegian newspapers, you get the impression that the EU debate is completly dead, but a little flame is still burning – online. Frode Dal Fjeldavli has also interviewed me for the article. The article  gives … Continue reading →