I am a Kiva-Lender since january 2010 and I still think, it is a great project! To get more informations about Kiva, just watch this great video and take a look at the Kiva press material and statistic informations.

For me the concept behind oldjewstellingjokes.com is great. Some young media-folks are using modern technology to capture and preserve the fascination of charismatic people giving everyone a laugh with their favorite jokes. Sometimes I am asking myself if the general average of jewish jokes is really so much about sexuality like within the ones presented in this project, but never mind. The people are just great and it is very much inspiring to read the short cv underneath every clip and learn about their carrers and achievements. The technical background is ok as well, so guys, if you want to have a laugh, give oldjewstellingjokes.com a try!

Sad but true. Everyone who works in media business knows that meanwhile a lot of the aspects shown in the video above are becoming standard within the industry. So even though for some of you it may be close to gallows humour I hope you will have at least a little fun with that video and perhaps even laugh about how crazy the whole situation has become.

comedians.comedycentral.com hosts a gigantic archive of clips from stand-up-comedians! At least by my taste you will find a lot of unknown but excellent people there.

My favorite is Patton Oswald’s take on US-politics. He shows us how real historic developments may seem quite strange through the eyes of a person living a decade ago:

Barack Obama (Wikipedia) already has a guaranteed place in the history books, no matter how many of his aims he will be able to reach. He has – with a little help from his supporters and voters – already made this world a bit more tolerant and better. He is the first “black” president of the US. He is an intensive user of new forms of communications for political processes. And last but not least he has become an idol of the loving father and modern husband, who sees his wife not only as ornament but as equal partner.

“Exact!”, will be the answer of like-minded Obama fans. “Again a pitiable naive, caught by propaganda”, the conservative critics will comment. But what makes me so sure that the harmony shown by the presidential couple isn’t indeed fake? What if Barak in reality is an asshole, who smiles in the lenses of journalists and otherwise loves to be served by others? In this case I would like to point to a picture shown on the official Flickr account of the White House.

Meanwhile everyone has seen the clip on Youtube, in which the president kills a fly during a interview on television (Link to the clip on Youtube). Not so known by far is the picture, taken after this in which he collects the dead insect from the floor (Link to the picture at Flickr).

I love symbolic pictures. And this one shows alongside other things that the president of the United States of America even beside all his responsibilities and everything he has to bear in his mind, instinctively needs to go down in this expensive suit for a dead fly. I don’t care, if he did it out of respect for the creature, out of respect for the cleaning staff of the White House or just because his wife trained him this way.

I like the picture. And I like Obama

Leading to War” is a documentary about the prologue of the recent war in iraq. You can download it for free, stream it or watch it on Google-Video.

Wikipedia says:
“Presented chronologically from President Bush’s State of the Union Address in January, 2002 (the Axis of evil speech), and continuing up to the announcement of formal U.S. military action in Iraq on March 19, 2003, the film presents selected interviews, speeches, and press conferences given by Bush and his administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Non-U.S. sources include British Prime Minister Tony Blair.”

The topic is interesting anyway, but the film and its internetpage leadingtowar.com are as well a good example for political communication in our times.

Freetagger Philipp has discovered a great picture on incredimazing.com. It shows the “Road to Success” with all its obstacles.

Well first I like to present the blueprint of the new logo of this blog. It should stand for optimism and journalism at the same time and I think, my graphic designer so far did a great job. Now he needs to do just some small changes and give the smiley a face. Then I will have a real cool logo, that I can use with the new template of this blog.

I have found three templates, that I could imagine using for the re-design: “Breaking-News“, “Blue Zinfandel� and “Simple Theme Cosmin“.

So, to get an impression from my readers, I have installed a poll in my German blog in this entry. Please feel free to enter it and vote for the theme that you can imagine to fit the most to my blog. Thanks.

As you are reading this text, I assume that you are using the internet. In case you are using it not only to read my blog but also do other stuff, you should really consider to take a look at “The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet”. Author Daniel J. Solove is telling about the chances but as well the dangers of our digital times in which we are vulnerable to until now unknown phenomena like virtual witch hunts in blogs, chats and social communities. Fortunately for us Solove, who is having a blog as well, convinced Yale University Press to publish the book not only as a commercial paper edition but as a free pdf-version, that can be downloaded from the books webpage. So now nobody has an excuse not to take at least a short glimpse in this volume. And I can only suggest to do so, because it contains some fundamental lessons about the internet as we live with it and in it today.

Via viralmythen (german), apophenia (english)

A creative guy from Berlin had a great idea. He made pictures of one hundred food products and their package. The result is an art project that does not want to judge the industry and their products but to inspire us. And for sure it inspired me to think about the illusory world created by commercials. You know, what I am talking about. The place where all the people are happy, healthy and do not even have pimpels. The place where the sun is always shining and the food is not only delicious but also looks perfect.

Honestly I have been suprised how close most of the food has been to the picture on the package – of course with the exception of the microwave-menus. By the way the name of the project is “Werbung gegen Realität” which means “Commercials against reality”.

Here is a presentation on Youtube:

I got the story from Robert (german link), who found it at the Shopblogger (german link as well).

The term “sprout” seems to be well-liked among webmasters. Perhaps that is why the guy behind Sprout Software thougt it would be unfair to have all that people on his page just because of his in SEO-sence “strong” domain sprout.com, even though they have been searching for something totally else. So now visitors who have gone astray are welcomed by a smiley to a link page with numerous alternatives. I consider this a fair and sweet gesture.

Yesterday I got a mail from the European Youthpress (a non-profit-organization which is by the way doing quite impressing work) that featured a blogentry on a american Google blog about special tools for non-profits. And indeed on www.google.com/nonprofits/ a new page has been created that shows in detail a list of services which either save time and money or help to find and engage supporters.

Of course something like Gmail, Docs or Calender is known and expected in such a list. But honestly I have to confess that I have never before heard about the Google Grants programme. It offers organizations from the US and 15 other countries (here is a list) a certain amount of free Google Adwords-Ads to gain more visitors for their own webpage. Another nice thing that I have never heard of seems to be Google Checkout (Wikipedia, official page). It is a online payment system that under certain circumstances can be used by non-profits without a fee until 2009. (Just a side information: The German GoogleWatchBlog criticized in november that the system could only be used with credit cards: link.)

Those guys from Google are really amazing, aren`t they. Regulary they start something new that is so practical and simple that everyone uses it. Just look at the list of tools, they already offer. Of course I like the possibilities they are giving to non-profit organizations to work more efficient. Unfortunately in the cold light of the day maybe the company gives things away for free, but the more people use their services, the bigger is their monopoly.

Sad but true: Even though I think of myself as beeing aware of the dangers and risks, such a monopoly can bring to us and our digital society in the future, I still use a lot of this stuff myself. Maybe I am just to lazy to look out for alternatives, maybe there are in most cases no appropriate alternatives or maybe I am just a big optimist. Anyway: If you run an NGO, a club or any other institution that meets the requirements, why don`t you try the Google Grants programme as the testimonials on their page do really sound promising.

I have never really been – and probably never will be – a fan of “Buffy“, but nevertheless I want to recommend a link to the New York Times, where you can download a whole Buffy-comic for free. Watch out, the pdf-file has a size of 100 MB!

Via Jackpot Baby (german)

Reporters without Borders have published a new edition of the “Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents�. The date was choosen to mark the Online Free Expression Day.

As it says on the RwB-Page:

The handbook offers practical advice and techniques on how to create a blog, make entries and get the blog to show up in search engine results. It gives clear explanations about blogging for all those whose online freedom of expression is subject to restrictions, and it shows how to sidestep the censorship measures imposed by certain governments, with a practical example that demonstrates the use of the censorship circumvention software Tor.

The leaders of authoritarian countries are becoming more and suspicious of bloggers, these men and women who, although not journalists, publish news and information online and who, worse still, often tackle subjects the so-called traditional media dare not cover. In some countries, blogs have become an important new source of news. It is to protect this source that Reporters Without Borders has updated its handbook

Via netzpolitik.org (german)

Those subjective toplists are always good for criticism, but can serve as well as excellent basis for discussion. Like yesterday’s story from the Guardian: “The world’s most powerful blogs”

Thanks to Daniel for the hint!

Scene from “Neulich auf dem Dachboden”

The Medienengel (media angels) Timo and Torsten Landsiedel show their first short film “Neulich auf dem Dachboden” (“Lately on the attic”) from the year 2001 on www.indie-stars.de. As they do not use any language in this film, it should also be also worth a watch for all non German speakers.

Here an excellent introduction into “Getting Things Done” by David Allen himself:

Greenpeace has started a new campaign against whaling and this time I didn`t learn about it from the press but – thanks to the world wide web – from an e-mail that I got directly from the campaign ship “Experanza”. As a result of the neverending coincidences and developments in life I had several years ago the chance to get to know the London-based photografer Jiri Rezac, who now joined this mission to contribute his skills.

Jiri is not only a nice person, but also the list of countries, he has traveled to, the topics, he has taken pictures for, the variety of languages, he is able to speak and last but not least the list of known media around the world, in which his work has already been published, are so long and fascinating that a short sum-up would simply not do it, and regarding this I would like to point out to the bio on his homepage as well as to that one on the greenpeace campaign blog.

Though he is in my eyes the impersonated adventurer or cosmopolitan and lives a life that many people dream of, from the words in his blog (here, here and here) can be seen that even for somebody like him the current travel is something new and exciting. For several months he will be onboard the “Esperanza” (wikipedia-page|official page of the ship|interactive tour).

The webcam onboard delivers a new picture every 60 seconds.

Not less fascinating is, that todays technique makes it possible to have a mail-conversation with somebody on a moving ship in the middle of the ocean on the other side of the planet. The Esperanza has a webcam that sends a new picture every 60 seconds.

Well, that is it so far. Please take a look at the campaign blog weblog.greenpeace.org/whales/ which in my honest opinion is a great use of modern forms of communication for an important topic. But you should as well consider a visit on Jiri’s page: jirirezac.com. There you can find among other things a detailed monthly documentation of his work from 2001 till 2005 as well as several special projects.

> Greenpeace campaign blog: Blog | RSS-Feed
> Blog by Jiri Rezac: Blog | RSS-Feed

The ones of you, who understand German could as well visit the german blog for the campaign. And if the name “Zwischen Walen und Harpunen” (“Between Whales and harpoons“) is to complicated, just remember the domain “http://195.137.170.166“.

I have just founded a group on Facebook, that I myself missed until now. It is called “People who believe that we can make the world a little better with blogging” and I think the name speaks for itself. It would be great that this group would be joined by a lot of bloggers from all over the world to learn from each other, exchange their experiences and develop some positive ideas together.

Here the group information:

So, everyone who can identify himself with this idea is warmly welcome in “People who believe that we can make the world a little better with blogging“.

I don not think, that there are a lot of people left who didn`t hear about Facebook until now, but if you belong to them, you will find some general information about it here in Wikipedia.

Just received the information that young journalists from all over Europe have the possibility to take part in the “European Young Journalist Award on EU Enlargement issues“, which has been officially launched in Brussels on november 15th. The title is: “Enlarge your visionâ€?.

The organiser is the European Commission, Directorate-General for Enlargement, in cooperation with the European Youth Press association. The objective of the competition is to encourage young journalists to reflect on and express their views on the European Union’s enlargement policy.

During its 50 year history, the European Union has grown from originally 6 member states to 27. With a population of close to 500 million inhabitants, today’s Union is much stronger and more influential than with its 6 member states and a population of less than 200 million. Enlargement is one of the EU’s most powerful policy tools. The pull of the EU has helped to transform Central and Eastern Europe into modern, well-functioning democracies. More recently it has inspired farreaching reforms in the candidate and potential candidate countries (Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, as well as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244). All European citizens benefit from having neighbours that are stable democracies and prosperous market economies. Enlargement is a carefully managed process which helps the transformation of the countries involved, extending peace, stability, prosperity, democracy, human rights and the rule of law across Europe.

Young European citizens in particular are taking advantage of this community of diverse values and cultures, as it is getting easier for them to travel and learn other languages through EU exchange programs. In the long run, they are the ones who will benefit most from EU enlargement. By formulating their ideas of the future Europe, young journalists are important opinion-leaders for their generation. In the framework of the competition, participants are asked to submit a recently published article (publication date between January 2007 and March 15, 2008). On the special competition website (www.EUjournalist-award.eu ) they can find articles on the EU enlargement, written by their colleagues, as inspiration for their journalistic work. Entries for the competition can be written in one of the official EU languages or one of the languages of the candidate and potential candidate countries.

At the end of the competition each participating country will select a national winner and all 35 winners will undertake a 3 day trip through Western Balkan countries together. In addressing the young competitors, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn said: “I welcome the launch of this competition and look forward to learning more about the views of young journalists on the enlargement policy. They are important opinion-leaders for their generation. I would like to invite them to share their experiences and visions of our common European future. Their ideas will further nourish the debates that will determine the shape of our continent.�

National juries made up of media representatives will select the winning article from each country in April 2008 and the articles will be published on the competition website. All the 35 winners will be invited on a trip through Western Balkan countries and will have the opportunity to participate in a conference with media representatives from various countries in June 2008. “Winners will not only be awarded but also get the chance of exchanging with experienced colleagues and media professionals. With this award we foster a network of young journalists between EU countries, candidate and potential candidate countries�, underlined Anna Siitam, spokes-woman for European Youth Press as the umbrella organisation of 48.000 young journalists in Europe.

For information on how to enter the competition, please visit www.EUjournalist-award.eu