Does your president run a personal blog?

President is a person who is simultaneously far from people and close to them. That is a person attracting the majority of nation’s attention as the head of the state. People want to know how their President lives, what are the new things he offers on the way of country development, his thoughts, his business and activity, his negotiations and his visits inside the country and overseas, etc. - all that is interesting not only for citizens but also internationally, depending on the country’s role on the world arena and in he world community. So it’s obvious that president is a public person, whose popularity very often beats the popularity of some TV, movie or music stars. That happens because people want the person they trust their country’s life and success to be honest with them, providing his activities’ and plans’ transparency. And today the ability to communicate with the president is getting more and more accessible thanks to the newest technologies appearance, IT advancing and development. Usually G-8 presidents are paid more attention than others. And of course over the last few weeks all the attention of the global community was attracted by G-20 Summit and its participants. We are to find out today what relations with the computer and Internet have some of the most famous representatives of the international community, whose names we can hear almost every day.

Of course, the first leader, we are to talk about is Barack Obama. He is considered to be one of the most technologically-connected presidents throughout the world and even the most Internet savvy President the USA has ever seen. He’s named by the Americans as an Internet president, because since he occupied his post enormous changes were seen in IT sphere. Almost all the Obama’s communications are done through the internet.

For Obama Internet is considered to be the driving force of the president’s successful victory as it appeared to become one of the key tools of his success. And experts claim the more supple use of the internet by the Obama campaign at the very beginning helped him to overcome the significant Hillary Clinton leadership in the presidential nominating race initially. Obama's internet strategy was at the heart of his plan to win the Democratic nomination. When Obama announced his campaign, his internet site was already fully developed and ready to run, with a set of tools which allowed supporters to meet and organize as well as contribute money. And during the primary season the fundraising and the mobilizing potential of the internet proved key advantages for Obama. Thus his internet strategy let him attract about two million volunteers. His early success soon generated a wave of small-size campaign contributions, while Clinton had to throw out large sum of money from “her own pocket” for her campaign. 

One of the unique features of the Obama campaign was an ability to take advantage of some social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook. And these actions showed social networking sites usage to be more powerful mobilizing tool to attract new supporters than sending out emails or waiting activists to come to the website.

However as for January, he didn’t have any PC or laptop in his Oval Office, unlike Bill Clinton who used to bring his own laptop to the office. But anyway Obama wouldn’t be able to access to the Internet because there is no wired connection in White House for some security reasons. But Obama always has his Black Berry on him and doesn’t intend to part with it. 

The official site for the White House and President Barack Obama is http://www.whitehouse.gov/. Meanwhile, you can find some other sites regarding the Obama’s personality, such as http://www.barackobama.com. 

That is a president, who is to have the chance to push a technology policy that relies more on government subsidy and regulation than that of his immediate predecessor. According to zdnetasia.com, from the very beginning of his presidency, Obama wanted to name the nation's first chief technology officer (CTO), who is to "ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century", as well as to protect the security of .gov computer networks.

Concerning the relations with Internet, the Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso is often being compared to the US president. Like Barack Obama, he considered to be an Internet person. It’s believed that no political figure has ever been as connected online to the ordinary people as Obama and Aso. Taro Aso’s fans, from the infamous 2ch message board and Akiba, show their support around various message boards and blogs. The Japanese can find all the information provided for the public by Aso and the government, applying to http://www.aso-taro.jp. 

As for Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister, about ten years ago, while being a chancellor, he started the politics of Internet development encouragement, putting a seven point plan for Britain to lead the next stage of the Internet revolution. That seven included:
• greater economic stability. 
• the more competitive environment 
• the right legislative framework for e-commerce 
• fostering innovation 
• transforming education 
• widening access for all 
• modernizing government - innovation of the public sector  

Today Gordon Brown, like the US president, is taking advantage of the web, and the social networking particularly, in an effort to reach and engage with a wider audience. Thus Brown and the labor marketing machine created a photo gallery on flickr, videos on YouTube, some particularly dull posts on Twitter and neglected Facebook account. Meanwhile, the UK Prime Minister office has the official web site, number10.gov.uk. 

Brown ‘s internet marketing machine also brought in legislation that all commercial websites should comply with standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). Number 10 has an Accessibility page that covers all the correct guidelines that should be following, however they aren’t. 
Interestingly, Gordon Brown’s Labor are now suggesting services like GPs. According to the BBC news, UK Prime Minister said it was wrong that consumer websites such as Amazon and eBay had “higher standards of transparency” than public services sites, meaning these web services should provide with more information concerning the politics. However, Brown himself considered to avoid placing the complete information of government and himself online. 

Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, is also one of the most Internet-connected and Internet savvy presidents, who is fostering the development of IT and related technologies within the country. The French President’s official site is http://www.sarkozy.fr/home. Meanwhile, Sarcozy has the very specific relations with the Internet. 

At the beginning of 2008 French President Nicolas Sarkozy implemented new taxes on internet access and mobile phone use, in a move to help fund France's two public television channels, which would be free of advertising.
In April this year Sarcozy offered to punish Internet pirates, who downloading illegally movies, music, or videos and other content without paying for them. Thus the new legislation, supported by President Nicholas Sarkozy, would become the world’s first ever state surveillance system on internet pirates. 

It’s well known, that Sarkozy is an individual very popular internationally in press and, surely, online. Thus, every day about 10,000 postings are made about the president, as reported founder of La Republique des blogs, Nicolas Vanbremeersch. Unfortinately 80% of them are negative and critical. So, in March 2008 Sarcozy made a sensation, appointing a 24-year old Nicolas Princen, who is to keep an eye on what is said about the French president on the World Wide Web, particularly in blogs, news sites, videos. Princen joined the president's communications team as an Internet advisor. His appointment was a result of a sequence of embarrassing incidents involving the president that became Internet hits, like a video of Sarkozy's verbal attack on a man at an agricultural fair or footage of him apparently drunk at a press conference at a G8 summit the previous year. And of course the bloggeres reacted immediately to this appointment. Thus, “Sarkozy's little cop," "Sarkozy's eye on the net," and "KGB Web" that are the names Princen got since he joined president's body. But, in spite all the disputes and talks around the internet advisor appointment, Princen’s main target is to monitor the public opinion concerning the president’s personality. 

The same 2008 year Sarcozy became a victim of hackers who cracked his banking account, getting somehow access to the login and password for running the account through the Internet. It’s incredible, but they even managed to decrypt three digits that supposed to defend the card from cracking. The president noticed that not big sums of money were withdrawn from his account by accident. As the specialists consider, the incident happened because, like the majority of users, the president doesn’t pay due attention to the security while working on the computer. Some familiar with the deal persons report that the fraud was carried out by not the ordinary criminals but the revolutionary-jokers. But the other specialists believe that hackers didn’t even realize they were stealing from the president.  

Angela Merkel, the German leader, known as the first woman chancellor, is also very technology-communicated. Thus about three years ago in 2006 she launched the official site http://www.bundeskanzlerin.de to provide citizens with the necessary information, with the help of weekly video messages. With this action she was aiming to make government policy transparent and accessible for public.  

In the middle of 2007 malware accident happened to Merkel while she was visiting China, within the Asian tour. Thus German chancellor’s computer system was attacked by the Chinese virus Trojan. That meant espionage programs were concealed in Merkel’s Microsoft Word documents and PowerPoint files which infected IT installations when opened. She was disappointed as for years she had been trying to set good relations with this Asian country. 

At the end of the year 2007, in a move to fight against the international terrorism, Merkel offered to provide law machinery with the authority to carry out secret internet searches. She explained that as the necessity not to let the terrorist fell comfortable online. 

Merkel is one of the world leaders who is to support and encourage the development of Internet technologies. Thus, she offered EU to invest in the advancement of high-speed internet and perfection of transmission networks, as she claims these actions are to help the EU economic strength and growth.  

Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, who from the very beginning of this year occupies the very important and respectable in the world community position of G8 President. Thus, he intends to use his presidency to push for an international agreement to”regulate the internet”. However, Italian bloggers are to protest against any move by the president to tighten government control over the web.

The Italy Prime Minister has the official site http://www.governo.it, which provides public with the official information regarding the politics of the government and the political events. Berlusconi’s web blog Italians can find here http://silvioberlusconi.splinder.com . 
  
Interestingly, Berluscony, as a responsible president of G8, on the base of its official site created the web site containing all the information related to Summit 2009. All the interested in the most important today political event on the world arena can apply to http://www.g8italia2009.it and find the complete information , like information about the participants, videos, photos, reports, talks, agendas, forecasts, latest news regarding the Summit 2009. Site also contains the forum, providing with the ability to discuss what is going on.  

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, has recently become the blogger, creating in October 2008 the videoblog on his official site, also known as the Internet-office, http://www.kremlin.ru. In his very first video message Medvedev told the citizens what he was going to report on the forthcoming conference concerning the problems of the world economy in Evian, France. It appeared to become a smart way for the president to communicate with the public. And, it was promised that such video messages, addressing to the Russian citizens are to appear on the official Kremlin site.  
 
April, 22 Medevedev implemented the blog community on the internationally popular web portal LiveJournal, under the name blogmedvedev, where all the content is to put up by the moderator. Thus, citizens can apply to http://community.livejournal.com/blog_medvedev . 

It’s obvious that modern world development, videlicet, processes of globalization and internationalization, IT advancement, new technologies appearance, etc, all this requires the heads of our states to have excellent computer skills, to be Internet savvy, to be updated and advanced in order to keep up with the progress. So any president or Prime Minister needs to know how to set up his own blog, let alone how to partition his hard drive to run Windows and MacOS. The presidents’ knowledge on how to use computer and Internet is the part of their office qualification that reveals their competence. Well…they should definitely be the experts as they are the persons whom people trust. And its very important that nowadays the world leaders not only have great computer and Internet skills, they also recognize the necessity of IT enhancement and improvement, and so hearten Internet infrastructure advancement within the country and internationally.