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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Watch the video of my entire Seattle Town Hall talk on January 13, 2010 (we’ll post the high-res version later). Here is my slide deck with notes (cross-posted from The Storyteller Uprising blog).  Special thanks to MCDM’er Jay Al-Hashal who provided the design concept for the deck and advised me on structure.  We covered everything last night — Iran, the Haiti Earthquake, Google’s stunning Chinese censorship decision, and as always, the future of journalism and the danger of echo chambers:

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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Flip the Media is the best blog ever! Flip the Media will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about social media… and more! In fact, experts say that reading Flip the Media will make you more popular with the opposite sex, reverse male pattern baldness, and even cure some types of cancer!*
*results not typical.

Sponsored posts — endorsements by bloggers in exchange for compensation from marketers, dubbed “blog-ola” for “blogger payola” – have become a reality. Flip the Media is great, but can it really do everything described above? Probably not. To combat deceptive sponsored posts, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced last year that it plans to revise its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (“the Guides”) to regulate how bloggers and other social media users endorse products. This could strike a blow to both the companies who crowdsource using social media and the bloggers who supplement their income with freebies. Read more…

Fascinating article in this month’s Atlantic, written by Andrew Sullivan, titled “Why I Blog”.  Conventional wisdom says that blogging represents the death of journalism.  Sullivan says no, blogging is simply another type of media that complements traditional journalism.  His analogy:  blogging is to journalism what Jazz (when it first came on the scene) was to classical music– it represented a different aesthetic, required a new way to think about music, but it didn’t make Bach or Mozart obsolete.

Some will take issue with Sullivan’s point of view.  After all, the rise of the internet is being blamed for the cutbacks at newspapers.  Right?  But those who “get it” know classifieds are what paid the bills.  So, it’s not, for example, the Drudge Report that’s challenging the traditional newpaper model, it’s Craig’s List.  And Craig’s List is not about journalism.

Of course it’s not so black and white.  But it prompts rethinking the view that online journalism is the primary culprit.

Sullivan’s piece is brilliant because it speaks to the fact that blogging is the great journalistic motivator–  it provides the masses with the opportunity for public expression, idea sharing and knowledge expansion.   “The blogosphere has added a whole new idiom to the act of writing and has introduced an entirely new idiom to the act of writing and has introduced an entirely new generation to nonfiction.”

Posted by Hanson:

Ok, not a scintillating post title, but you students are the star attraction here, not me.

A Top Blogger Sees an End to Blogging: the novelty of CEO’s “blogging” will end. They’ll just “communicate.”

How We Use Twitter for Journalism: “use of Twitter so far has included: the discovery of breaking stories, quality assurance, and the promotion of our work.”

Great Minute Papers, you all clearly enjoyed our speaker, Scott Ehrlich:

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