I am watching the NHL game between Anaheim Ducks and Detroit Red Wings. Rob Niedermayer together with Chris Pronger just hit Tomas Holmstrom together with their arms smashing his head against the board. Very low, very intentionally and very much disgraceful… (Robs brother Scott Niedermayer in the same manner crosschecked Peter “Foppa” Forsberg in the back into the board in the final in the 2004 World Championship.) Personally I hope this Niedermayer gets thrown out of the game for a long time. I certainly would like Chris Pronger to face the same faith. Intentionally blows/hits with the only intention of hurting a player should be “rewarded” with a permanent leave from the game. Ishockey is about playing, not hurting your oppponents.

Update: Tomas Holmstrom is back!
Update 2: Even better, now he assisted on another goal.

Today Linda Skugge decided to quit blogging. She got tired of all the negative and offensive comments. I decided to write a reflection on trolls.

… always get tougher when it is getting tough is the saying. I have thought about this recently and also saw “Remember the Titans” tonight. There are many great quotes in the film which I really think encapsulate leadership, team work and how to deal with “uphills”. The first one is very football oriented - “I don’t want them to gain another yard. You blitz all night!! If they cross the scrimmage… I’m gonna take every last one of you out! I want you to make sure… they remember… forever… the night the played the Titans?”. You stand your ground and never ever yield. So true, so true. You work as a team together always. One of the best reflections on leadership I’ve heard outside the forces is: “Attitude reflects leadership!”.

… should definitely read the New York Times’s article from today. A friend sent me an article about a puck crazy town in the northern parts of Sweden. I have only been there once, when I was driving back with my oldest brother eating burgers, but just being there for such a short while I too felt the hockey religion there. What about the burger? Yes that too was great.

For you who have missed it you can find the article here - A Puck-Crazy Town in Sweden Churns Out N.H.L. Stars.

Yet another example of problems with the current formulation of Web 2.0. Many sites have underestimated the community aspects and the loose publishing form. I do think something more intelligent is needed as a backend solution that currently to counteract the problems with the loose behavior yet providing the user with the best possible content.

I wrote a longer version on the changing media scene here.

Yesterday I had a dinner with a BBC correspondent Imtiaz Ali in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A wonderful person with some very intriguing stories on the area. Just before he left he share a truly insightful comment: We should focus on the similarities between people, not the differences.

Bruno Giussanni writes about my thoughts on viral marketing.

This week has been an unusually intense ride. Yesterday was the first day it really slowed down for me to reflect on it. I have been booked between 8AM-11PM everyday even though the meetings have been amazing all the way through. Thursday’s visit of the US ambassadors in Sweden, Norway and Denmark was very intriguing and I had a lot of very interesting conversations.

Today, I even got the chance to relax with a book and enjoy an afternoon coffee on the roof.

So cool. I just got back from the Sharks game in San Jose where Foppa visited with his Nashville in”The Sharks Tank” (or HP Pavillion which is the actual name). It wasn’t one of his greatest games, but he played as he usually does, nothing fancy but always clean, gets the puck through all the time and manage to really shine a few occasions. In the last period he got some free ice and it didn’t take more than a few seconds before he served one of his team mates on the blade free with the goalie. Unfortunately the teammate missed the goal. Damn.

On another occasion a Sharks player tried to get him out of balance lying on him in the Sharks defensive zone trying to get him out of balance. He more looked at the guy as “What are you doing? Are you gonna lie on top of me for long?”. It was actually quiet funny.

Nevertheless it was clear that people had a sincere respect for his abilities both the team on the ice and the people I met in the arena. I can only say one thing. It was so cool to see him live in a Stanley Cup playoff game. Amazing.

It has been a lot of buzz about Twitter even though their traffic is not really that impressive right now - http://quantcast.com/twitter.com - many believe it to be the next big web hit. I am still skeptical about the success for Twitter even though the concept is incredible simple.

Twitter has until now been a very US centric site, which also makes sense from a monetization point of view as that is where the advertising dollars exist. The SMS replies can in the US be sent via SMTP, but that is very US specific. The confirmation replies and the group SMS will then be very cheap. If you get enough traffic, you should be able to monetize even with a very low CPM combined with the likely very low cost structure of Twitter, but will the technology behind it scale enough with the users? I don’t know. We will know as time progresses. They really do everything right by trying as it is the only way to get the answer.

Nevertheless, I am leaning to believe it would be easier such as the case with YouTube to harness the potential power inside something else as a tool or service. For instance it will perfectly into the scope of poking in Facebook and profile commenting in MySpace. I do see why people love the concept. However I do think the main power of Twitter is not in the US but in the huge markets in Asia such as India, China and Japan where texting is major factor.