Repercussions…

Ever seen those news posts about companies coming down hard on employees who discuss stuff in their personal blogs?

when do you class something online as “Personal” when these days, anyone can “walk” onto your site and view it? does it still get classed as personal, or free information for people to read and view?

For example, I noticed in my stats recently that i’ve had a few people come on through Google and Yahoo search engines (hello btw 🙂 you wont find jack shit about Xmen4 or Storm Cinemas in Belfast here, I’ll just rant about them) and I realised quite quickly that a google search of the lecturers name in speech marks will have my site pop up very quickly in the rankings.

Now, of course the chances of someone searching specifically for his name here is very slim, but the chances are that I might have other key words imbedded somewhere, so I would have to watch my tongue when i refer about my current company, previous companies or people I know or talk to, because of problems that might occur.

So people get paranoid, very paranoid when it comes to writing stuff down.  What they seem to forget that every time they click the “Publish” button, they are in essence releasing a magazine (thats my play on things here, so stick with it) and it must be readable to the world.  Anyone can pick up your “magazine” and flick through it, reading stuff and viewing pictures of yours, so you have to present yourself in a way thats not too offencive.

That makes everyone online a Reporter, Editor, and Publisher in one foul swoop, and with that comes extra responsabilities for their publication.

So where does that leave bloggers who discuss stuff as simple as what happened to them over the weekend?  Or an event that just happened?
Its interesting to see the professional blogs, they are written much like a column in the newspapers, its all random musings but its all political correct, its inoffencive, its simple to read.

But the most interesting things, are the stuff people put into their Livejournals, or on blogspot, or any of the large-scale blog sites out there. The world itself has gotten so “small” due to the internet and communications that after a large disaster like New Orleans flooding, the main avenue for news wasnt the large news sites, but from people at the front line “blogging” whats happening.

I guess the point im trying to get to with loads of extra waffle is, the benefit of blogging is that you can get information you have, views and stories out to a wider audience in a shorter period of time, and people will read it because its interesting.  People dont mind hearing about the latest stabbing, but if someones talking about their new puppy it sparks more interest.

News these days doesnt feature the good points, only the bad points.  Negativity is fueled by the war in Iraq, iran’s nuclear reprocessing, the fact that there were 12 arrests after the england world cup match on saturday. 

 

Blogs are here to stay, because its humanity writing them, not ratings 🙂

I didnt bother spellchecking this, because im human and i make mistakes.  🙂