You gotta love Russian President Dimitry Medvedev (or maybe not!). He’s the world’s most powerful Deep Purple fan. And it seems as if he updates his own Twitter account — at least the Russian-language version.

Of course, it’s easy to assume that heads of state have teams of handlers who do their direct online communication for them. For instance, I’ve gone back and forth on whether Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s now-hacked blog broadcasted his personal musings direct-to-the-people. But judging by the personal voice of Medvedev’s Twitter feed (i.e. “My father taught a lot of graduate students from Vietnam. It was very nice to meet some of them today“), I’m thinking that he probably writes his own tweets, but maybe gets help uploading the photos from his SLR.

Such as this Twitpic from November 1st, replete with status update:

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I give a lot of presentations.  I hate making slides to support them.  I find it tedious, and often more time-consuming than creating the presentation itself.  And I can’t help but thinking that I’m not necessarily enhancing my talk through this extra effort.

I’ve heard a lot about Prezi, (Prezi is a flash-based nonlinear storytelling tool for creating dynamic multimedia presentations. The end result is not a set of slides, but a canvas where the user can zoom in and out, discovering contextual relationships) but I finally decided to give it a try after reading one of my students rave about it on Flip The Media.  True to my nature, I took my chances and took it for a test spin in front of 50 Very Important People at the University of Washington’s College of Arts & Science board annual meeting.  I was the lunchtime keynote, hence I needed to provide a balance of enlightenment and entertainment.  Here’s my Prezi (which I co-presented with my MCDM colleague Scott Macklin, as well as with our student Katherine Turner):

Like blogging, vlogging (video blogging) is a way to share your insights on a subject with an online audience. However, vlogging goes beyond the text of a blog post, transforming your content into an audio-visual broadcast. If you’re interested in vlogging, but don’t know how to start, here are some tips:

The first thing you’ll need is the right equipment, and the good news is you don’t need much, just a camcorder or a web camera and a good microphone. Also, for a vlog that has a more polished look, you’ll want to learn how to use video-editing software. This will enable you to add music, subtitles, etc. to your vlog. There are numerous online programs like Wax or Zwei-Stein Video Editor that you can download for free. Also, Apple iMovie and Windows Movie Maker are both easy to use and come pre-installed on Macs and PCs.

Once you’ve assembled your equipment, I recommend experimenting. Test the sound quality of your microphone; make sure there is sufficient lighting where you’re recording your vlog and figure out how you want to look on camera. Remember that vlogging is a form of communication, so you want to not only be visible (no low lighting), but also intelligible. Most vlog “episodes” should be one to three minutes, keeping the amount of bandwidth needed to host them to a minimum. Therefore it’s a good idea to rehearse your content. At the very least, I recommend preparing a script or some type of plan before each video so that you can deliver concise, focused content. Finally, don’t be afraid to have fun with your vlog. Depending on your audience, you’ll want to be more than just informative; you’ll also want to be candid and entertaining. Like blogging, it’s important to pick subjects you love and can explore in a series of posts. One episode doth not a vlog make.

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When people from different cultures collaborate, there are often communication problems, which can be exacerbated when using online platforms. A working knowledge of how different societies use context to convey meaning can help avoid misinterpretations and confusion.

Anthropologist Edward Hall refers to high context and low context communication to indicate how much speakers rely on things other than words to convey meaning. High context societies place more value than low context societies on how something is said rather than what words are used. Many online platforms rely on low context communication; it’s important to keep this in mind when using these tools to share information with a global audience.

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As go-to sources for innovative content, amateur bloggers have been teaching mainstream media professionals some new tricks. Once considered the sideshow of journalism, blogging has taken the center ring. Even traditional media outlets have joined the fray, bolstering blogging’s reputation. But for amateur bloggers not writing for a trusted brand, establishing a trustworthy reputation remains important. For Justin Carder of Capitol Hill Seattle, consistency is key: “You do the same good stuff day in and day out for long enough, and you become trustworthy. It’s a function of effort as much as anything.”

In addition, here are five tips for gaining your audience’s trust, and writing like a pro—even if you aren’t one:

1. State your credentials: When positioning yourself as a blogger, you must inform your audience of your qualifications. Credentials inspire confidence, and the term does not exclusively apply to professional degrees. For instance, if a blogger is an experienced ballet instructor and writes about ballet’s emotional benefits, her opinion has merit, even though she is not a licensed behavioral professional.

2. Write what you know: When you write about subjects you have in-depth knowledge about, your insights are richer and more authentic than when writing about a topic requiring extensive research. “Because I care about what I write, I can help my audience by making useful suggestions, interesting observations or just making them chuckle a little at what happens to me,” explains Candy Martin, author of the Seattle P-I reader blog Mother of Style.

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moot, a skinny 21-year-old college student and hacker prodigy who looks about 16, runs a website out of his parents’ basement called 4chan, an adults only bulletin board where just about anything can be posted—with the exception of advertising. Oh, and anything that violates local or US law, or any complaints about 4chan of any kind. Under rule number two is a reminder that if you are under the age of 18 you need to “discontinue browsing immediately.” Since moot launched 4chan in October 2003 with his mother’s credit card, obviously he’s spent a fair amount of the time in-between breaking his own rules.
moot describes 4chan as “a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images.” Because people can post anonymously—the comments and images–and subject matter–can get pretty raunchy. It has a simple, alphabetical (but coded) format with content that leans toward anime and Read more…

“Revolutions happen when society adopts new behaviors.” – Clay Shirky

“Us Now” is a British video and website about how people come to each other on the Internet from a place a trust.  Ostensibly, people online are more willing to collaborate, become self-organizing, develop communities easily, volunteer more information and time, are more productive and startlingly innovative. The film’s main premise is that, if given the option, online life brings out the best in people. It’s relatively revolutionary premise is that by coming to this world from a position of trust, individuals can “game the system.”

The film uses several real-life examples:

• The Ebbfleet United football team is owned by 35,000 fans who belong to My Football Club. Fans get to, among other things, select the starting lineup.
  

  Ebbsfleet United football team is owned by the fans.

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Wharton Professor Eric Clemons joins us at noon today to talk about his provocative article on why advertising is dying on the web.