Enter PopTent and its crowd-sourced video production social network, which has set up shop in Sao Paulo to help connect brands and Brazilian video artists.

“Brazil is home to a growing and dynamic combination of video consumers, content creators, and innovative brands,” said John deTar, Poptent co-managing director for Brazil. “We are now able to more directly engage a growing localized base of brand advertisers and content creators, as well as a Brazilian marketplace that has already proven itself to include one of the world’s fastest-growing and most engaged populations of Internet users.”

Major brands and their agencies use Poptent, known as XLNTads in another life, to post assignments to its network of 33,000 videographers (up from 21,000 back in December) in 120 countries. Within a 40-day time frame, Poptent will receive anywhere from 25 to 100 videos per assignment. Brands are obligated to buy at least one submission but typically pick two or three, the majority of which air online. Occasionally brands or agencies will develop relationships with the video artists for future content development.

Not only is it a sweet way for starving videographers to make cash and brighten up their resumes, such videos can inexpensively bolster and diversify a brand’s online video ad inventory.

Poptent also announced that it has awarded $2 million in cash payments to video artists in its network, only seven months after reaching $1 million. Brooklyn-based videomaker Brandon Carter tossed the company over the milestone as he received $10,000 from Dell for this ad (the punch line is worth the whole segment — as long as you know your YouTube memes).

Some industry sources are surprised at the announcement. Michael Dell returned to the company as CEO in 2007 and handpicked a number of key staffers, one of whom was Cannon.

Another hire was Mark Jarvis, previously of Oracle, as Dell’s chief marketing officer. Jarvis is also being shown the door. Erin Nelson, previously vice president of marketing, Dell Europe, Middle East and Africa, will take over as CMO.

Sources told the Wall Street Journal that other cuts are likely to ensue. Dell will also reportedly plans to restructure its finances – clearly a much-needed step.

Dell was trading at about $10.15 at 9:36 a.m., down from a high of roughly $30.

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Industry observers predict that M&A activity will be stymied, IPOs will be shelved and that venture capital will dry up as investors seek safe havens from risk.

And tech stocks are certainly hitting the skids (Dell plummeted about 10% in morning trading alone, and over the past 30 days, Apple is down 19.3%, Oracle is down 7.5%, Yahoo is down 16.5% and Google is down 17%.

But it’s still too early to tell how overall malaise in the tech world will affect online advertising.

MessageOne, which also provides archiving and business continuity services, was bought to round out Dell’s Software-as-a-Service suite. MessageOne was co-founded by Adam Dell, brother of Dell founder Michael Dell – it’s owned in part by investment funds Impact Venture Partners and Impact Entrepreneurs Fund, which is managed by Adam Dell.

“This is a valuable acquisition for Dell. MessageOne’s offerings add key capabilities to our growing SaaS-enabled services portfolio for the most critical application to businesses of any size – e-mail,” said Steve Schuckenbrock, president, Dell Global Services, and chief information officer. “MessageOne’s services not only meet the needs of large companies – with an impressive roster of existing Fortune-500 customers and marquee partners as proof points – but can also scale down cost effectively to meet the needs of small and medium business customers.”

Several members of the Dell family are investors in Impact funds. When the Impact funds distribute the acquisition consideration to their partners, Adam Dell will receive approximately $970,000; Michael Dell, Susan Dell and their children’s trust, collectively, will receive approximately $12 million; and Mr. Dell’s parents will receive approximately $450,000. Impact Venture Partners now owns 22.31% of MessageOne and Impact Entrepreneurs Fund owns a 1.73% of MessageOne.

YoursIsHere.com is a complete site for visitors can select the product and a sales pitch they want a celebrity to make on their behalf through a video clip. This email will link back to the page which even has a PayPal option for gifters to purchase on the spot. “We created a campaign based around wishing,” said David Clifton, director of marketing and communications for Dell. “The initiative is meant to make it easy and fun for a customer’s holiday gift wishes to come true.”

VP of sales and marketing for Dell’s consumer business Michael Tatelman said “With YoursIsHere.com, Dell is helping customers connect with their friends and family in personal, unique and entertaining ways.” Celebrities that have taken part in the campaign include: Burt Reynolds, Chuck Liddell, Brooke Burke, Estelle Harris, Ice T and Vivica A. Fox.

Upon launch, the site immediately caught flack from the blogosphere late last week for its PR-like posts. Well-known Dell critic Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine wrote that “this is as much a conversation as yelling at a brick wall.” Other bloggers like Robert Scoble of Scobelizer recognized Dell’s unfamiliarity with the blogging space and offered some constructive criticism.

Dell followed up critics earlier this week with a post from Lionel Menchaca, Dell’s Digital Media Manager, which addressed the thoughts of other bloggers and thanked Jeff for his comments. As corporate blogs go, one2one is still green. Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion called the blog’s launch a missed opportunity. But he also added a word of encouragement, “Cmon Dell. We know you’re bigger than this. Join us. Be real. Walk the talk.”

Financial terms and a timeline for the deal were not disclosed, but the company will share revenue from the linking.Google’s new toolbar will be placed on the Dell desktops.Dell computer users will also be directed to a web page branded by Google and Dell.The software will be placed on machines sold to consumers as well as to small and medium sized business.

Neither company could be reached for comment.

Back in 1997, when someone at a technology conference asked him what he would do to “fix” Apple (which was then floundering financially), the chairman and founder of Dell computers offered this as his public estimation of the companies worth:

“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to shareholders.”

Hee hee hee. Oh, Michael. What a funny thing to say… and no one’s laughing louder right now than Apple founder Steve Jobs, who just last week guided his company’s market capitalization to $72.13 billion (off a recent 12% surge in stock price). Again, that’s $72.13 billion… which, if I’m doing my math correctly, puts Apple just ahead of, oh, Dell Computers, whose value is about $71.97 billion.

True, Dell is still a richer man than Jobs (he’s worth about $14.2 billion, to Jobs’ estimated $3 billion or so), but that hasn’t kept Jobs from gloating just a little over Dell’s miscalculation. In an email message to his employees, Jobs wrote:

“Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future. Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.”

All of us loyal Mac users are cheering right along with ya, Steve.