Online content is volatile, out of control and sometimes harmful. We all know it and try hard to stay on the safe side and use common sense when posting our own writings on the Internet. Other than that, content is a great source of revenue, if played smart, and when it’s user generated, it can be turned into a money making resource with little to no creative effort.

But the tricky part with user generated content is responsibility. Technically, it’s enough to have a disclaimer on your website saying you are not responsible for what users post and then let all the ugliness of abuse, offense and gossip take over your online space.

The most recent successful recipe for online fame built on such negative concepts is College ABC, a gossip site for college students that encourages them to post anonymous messages about their colleagues. The amount of negative comments, going from simple gossip to insults and bullying is impressive. And the fact that it comes for people in college is even more disturbing, but not exactly surprising, as a degree does not guarantee intelligence, nor common sense.

The team behind College ABC is of course safe, as they cannot be held responsible for what their users publish. It is a great way to hide between current laws and freedom of speech. But they have a moral responsibility for all the of insults, trashing and bullying people who have nothing to do with the site have seen posted on the Internet, for everyone to see.

The amount of damage their image will take is hard to assess. Imagine a future hiring manager running a search for a candidate’s name and seeing all sorts of crap posted about them on a college students’ website! Even if they don’t take it into account, it still looks bad. It might look bad for future clients trying to discover who they are working with.

And what advice could one give to students whose name is tarnished in such awful manner? Don’t ever annoy anyone? Pray you somehow manage to make everyone like you and jealousy disappears from the face of the earth in no time?

Or maybe hope that Google will never give the College ABC website too much credit? That’s long gone, it’s a major, spicy trend on the search engine.

I do pray that one day the Internet, the companies and entities activating on it and the overwhelming number of online communities learn more about common sense, moral responsibility and the price not worth paying for some quick profits. As one of the students appalled by the website stated, “those are the type of things people commit suicide over.”

Guest post by Alin Ivenţa

The process of developing one’s communication skills must currently take into consideration a wide range of books, articles, conferences, tips and tricks etc., all of which are based on things written or discussed years ago.

As a retrospective insight, the ’80s have put the spotlight on “body language”, “powerful presentations”, overall “behavioral communication” for those demanding economic business growth. Then in the ’90s, we clearly saw a revolution in all that is visual: from graphic design to subliminal messages that get stuck in our minds.

Early ’00s came up to show the World Wide Web potential: ease of access to more information, different resources, new kinds of media and so on. Nevertheless, it was impossible to predict such a high expansion in such short time, as in 2009 we now have Wikipedia, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, newsletters, virals, tons of websites, gigabytes of information and don’t forget about Google which seems to be doing everything for you.

And we’re only a click away!

I believe it’s becoming more and more difficult to address these major players on our global society with “old-school methods” only. Nowadays, communication has reached a sustained and well known rhythm of specificity and thinking “out of the box” or brainstorming your team ’till 2 AM just doesn’t seem to be as productive and efficient as it was 15 years ago.

Why does this happen? To put it simply: because human nature has a constant need for diversity – just think about the first time we found fire: we made a steak on a stick . This diversification usually ends in a discovery which, furthermore, implies a certain process of creativity.

When LinkedIn came into sight, who thought that it is going to be one of the most useful and used business platforms (from contacts to closing a deal)? What about Wikipedia, when we all had some sort of encyclopedia on our shells?

Communication is on the edge of being something different.

Most of us now pay attention to the other person’s body language; clearly, it’s easier to see whether or not he / she is a liar just by watching his / her eyes; any inflexion in the voice exposes a certain level of nervousness, while mirroring will help you in having a more relaxed and detached conversation. And you know all these, because you’ve read it in some magazines or a trainer told you so, or you’ve watched some movies or listened to some audio books about them. And the person next to you knows these as well!

We prefer to write a short email or send an SMS, just because there isn’t time to meet with that person – you’re busy running to get a seat in the metro-train; it’s so much easier to buzz them on Yahoo Messenger, while you have in mind that old “Keep it short and simple!” marketing principle – and you don’t seem to ask yourself anymore “When was the last time I saw him / her?” We tweet about what we just did or what we’re gonna do or what someone else has done, at least 3 / 4 times a day – and you do get that nice feel you’ve “spread the word around”, right?

Basically, we’ve switched from face-to-face communications to an indirect chat over an internet connection. And when we finally realized that, we had already had 5 email accounts created, 2 or 3 social networking profiles, more than 10 blog-posts per week (or per day, in some cases), wasted hours on messengers, precious time given away because we are “too tired” to do something else.

And we seem to adapt to this as it would (or must or has to) be “natural”. But I’m 24. For me, normality has that old-school feeling in its definition, I still prefer to meet with somebody for a cup of coffee (or a beer, depends) and have a nice conversation about everything and nothing at the same time. I’d rather call them, than buzz ‘em over messenger, if these were the only communication ways I had. I love to read a good book and have it in my hands, rather than on my Blackberry and I most certainly believe that the friends I have can tell more about me than a public social network profile. Yes, I do use them, but I do not want to make them the biggest part of who I am!

And now I think about 5 to 10 years old kids… who were born in this internet era… They are all logged in – multitasking – results oriented – highly capable – bla-bla-painful-bla. For what, really?

Alin Ivenţa is a poet, a sales specialist and an amateur actor, all uniquely mixed, stirred and served. He currently manages the South Asian and Pacific sales accounts at Gecad Technologies, developer of the Axigen Mail Server. He also runs a very interesting blog, Reality 2.0 – in Romanian – and I invite you to visit it to find out more about him.

I’m sure you’ve all heard quite a lot lately about VIPs joining the Twittersphere. I’m also sure a lot of you (out of curiosity or expecting to see something different) also started following some of said stars. It’s fun if you’re already on Twitter and you want something of a different flavor than your usual. But did any of you like what you saw? I for one read the articles, saw the profiles and drew my own conclusion.

Want to hear it? Then get closer! I’ll share a major secret with you. Stars and VIPs are the worst teachers you could ever get if you want to learn some valuable social media skills. And here’s why!

1. They are oblivious of conversations

Yes, they are! They simply broadcast. And they seem unable to join a conversation or start one with their followers. Take Oprah for example. Do you see any replies, retweets or anything there? If you look really hard, you’ll see some replies to Demi Moore.

2. They really are royalty

That means they are exclusive. They only talk to their own, see the above example. Should you hold it against them? Well, let’s say you have 1 million followers. Say a big chunk of them are spammers. Say 30% reply to something you said. How long will it take to reply to them? How much time that’s better invested somewhere else? Sure, they could hire someone, but we’re all here to see them!

But if you’re looking to reach out to people, build relationships with them that are valuable and rewarding for both parties, you won’t have the “I’m busy” excuse.

In all fairness, it seems the longer they are on Twitter, the more they seem to get the dialogue part of it. Check out the Kutcher couple! They actually reply and retweet a lot! Different story from when I first saw their profiles.

3. There was an important rule about giving…

Oh, true, there is! The first rule of social media is to first give and then ask for something. Well, they only had to show up to get thousands of raving fans follow their every online move. Even when they were making no moves to begin with. Do you really think that would work in your case? I dare you to try! See if you can get anything valuable out of it! Yes, I’ve seen the profiles with no updates and hundreds of followers. But I could point to the fact there’s a quality of followers to think of. And if you started posting spammy tweets, I can guarantee those followers won’t stick around for too long.

4. They’re online for different reasons

Yes, they’re there because it’s trendy. Because it’s another means to plug their projects and brag about them. They’re not there to meet interesting people, develop business opportunities or get back in touch with old friends. Remember reason number 1? They’re on social media sites to broadcast. Just as they will never reply all fan emails, while you simply have to reply all your work emails, friends’ emails and family messages.

5. Really, it’s not feasible

Tweeting twice a day, following almost no one, not joining any conversations, do you really see yourself doing that and reaching your goals? I very much doubt it.

Remember! There are exceptions and there are things to be learned while following the stars on their journey through the social world. But if you’re looking for highly effective, genuine and real social media lessons, there are so many other people you should pick as role models. Maybe learning from the best will change the general view on Twitter (and sometimes the entire social space), that it’s a place for attention whores and people who are already famous.

The golden rule to follow? Join, listen, connect, add value to ongoing conversations, start your own dialogues. That’s what I do and that’s why I am on Twitter. And I get friends, knowledge, inspiration, fun and also business out of it!

This is the kind of news that makes all those predicting the end of print media go “Aha!”. Starting February 2009, we’ll have to say goodbye to the print version of PC Magazine. It will be changed into a digital format, with similar subscription options. I’m looking forward to see how advertising options will change, but even more curious to see how many of they readers switch from paper to downloadable format.

How did they announce it? Well, it’s all posted on their site, the CEO emailed their contacts and, just in case that email was lost among others, account managers also contacted their clients. From what my contact shared with me, before this move, a large part from the magazine’s income was generated by their digital branch. This leads me to believe the complete switch was a pretty smart move.

What do you think? Any predictions you’d like to share? Will other magazines follow the same pattern? Is this easier for a tech magazine? I’d love to read your thoughts.