Blogs Make You Immortal or Infamous

Writing is the surest way to become immortal. At least it was, until Writing married Google and their children grew up blogging. Immortality is now open to the public, but diluted in such a way that would-be giants have little to chew. All can and will live on, but will shrink to fit the room - and talk about each other incessantly with voices much bigger and lasting than themselves. Let me explain. No, there is no time. Let me sum up. Anything you say in the blogosphere can and will be used against you in a court of law, in a job interview, at her parents' house, in Business Week, and by the search engines as they index what you say (and what others say about you) forever and ever. Amen. Fray, a website where people can tell their stories, still holds developer acid trip - from five years ago. That tale first reached the masses on Jason Kottke's page 1, complete with the phrase, "Josh Santangelo on drugs." Even if Santangelo acknowledged in 2001 that he may not have posted that story had he thought about his career before publishing it on the Web, he wasn't all that concerned about it. But blogorrhea has ensnared many an employee blogger. Google, Microsoft, and Delta Airlines have all canned workers for blog comments, personal blogs or not. In the 21st century, it's more than protecting your current job, it's about protecting your future job and your reputation. Just imagine landing an interview, nailing it, and being confident you'll be hired only to learn you were "Googled" and your potential boss found a very embarrassing story about you from college - or worse, an off-color blog post from last week! At Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," 12/3/97 Heh. That one's my favorite. Tag: | document.write("Email Murdok here.") Drag this to your Bookmarks. Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") Yahoo My Web