17 Oct 2026
Hallands Nyheter: The story of Lunarstorm, “We actually were first in the world”
Ahead of the 30th anniversary, Hallands Nyheter (HN), the local paper in Varberg's region, tells the whole story, from the villa slated for demolition in the Willys car park to Tullhuset, with the people who founded, built and ran LunarStorm: Rick, lumbus, TheQ, Kjell Sallén and Vilhelm Schottenius.
This was the time when 15-year-olds got shown adverts for washing machines. So in that way we actually were first in the world with targeted advertising.
- Rick says one of the keys was thinking about the viewer: why should everyone have to ask who you are and where you're from, when you can create a profile and say it there?
- In the Stajl Plejs days it could take half an hour to log in, because the server was so overloaded. That made Rick realise there was something here that didn't exist anywhere else.
- Car parks in Varberg had Lunar written on them, and it became the tourists' big selfie thing. Few knew that LunarStorm was based right there.
- lumbus remembers that for a period around 8,000 new members joined every day, and that you could pick the clothing style “Ullared” (the famous bargain department store) in your profile.
- TheQ met his girlfriend on Stajl Plejs. Their daughter was born in 2001, so they were among the first to have a Lunar baby.
- Rick on the train journey: “I work at Spotify and got interested in programming because I sat decorating my krypin on Lunarstorm.”
- In the print paper the article only appeared on Friday 23 October, with the front page “De tog internets mittpunkt till Varberg” (They brought the centre of the internet to Varberg) and four pages inside, where a fact box presents five key people in LunarStorm's history.
With: Andreas Ödman (lumbus), Jonny Johansson (TheQ), Kjell Sallén, Vilhelm Schottenius