I'm teaching a blogging workshop for the library this spring. There are many things I feel duty-bound to teach the masses about blogging, but Lesson Number One is going to be Your Blog is on the Internet. The Internet. Inter.Net. The public, searchable Internet.
Translation: If you write about authors' books, they will email you to tell you a) Thank you for posting nice things about my book OR b)You spelled my name wrong.
Because Your Blog is on the Internet.
And if you post THIS, the Development Director at the Festival will email you. And then you will be utterly mortified because you will realize that you shouldn't refer to someone as your imaginary boyfriend if you're going to MEET HIM, and he (and the entire Festival) will see your post. But by the time you do realize it, it will be too late and you'll just have to live in fear that your plane ticket to London is going to be accompanied by a restraining order.
Because Your Blog is on the Internet.
They didn't cover that in the workshop I attended before I started blogging. I'm happy to pass this wisdom on to new bloggers, though. My embarrassments ought to benefit someone.
10 comments:
um, its still relatively anonymous. your blog I mean.
Yeah, but there's this whole population reading it that you may be unaware of, and the things you write may come back to haunt you. And in the case of the Festival, I'd posted something that was read by people I later met and I was completely identifiable, being the only 20-something female in the group.
I so want to attend your workshop. The Deseret News has been doing articles lately on blogging. Yesterday's article talked about just this subject of how blogs are on the public searchable Internet. In the article it talked about how some (very stupid) people put things like their home addresses and home phone numbers on Internet sites. That pretty much just makes me stare in disbelief.
Will you put your lessons up as you teach? I could probably use a lesson or two on not posting things that may come back to mortify you (like admitting to mentally swearing at parents in Nursery--oops just admitted to it again.)
I'm a whole population (slight exaggeration) that you don't know who reads your blog. Its a link on my sister-in-law's blog. But, I don't know your imaginary boyfriend, so don't worry.
(I asked a friend to take my blog off of her favorites list, because i sometimes express my feelings about my Laurels' parents, or girls' camp rules. Some of those feelings are negative.)
I am sure you know this already, but you can restrict your blog to readers you choose or make it so that it won't come up in search engines. I decided to restrict mine so that it won't come up in search engines after looking at my blog meter and seeing that people from all over the world were searching for something that hit on my blog and then decided to peruse the whole thing. The idea of a creepy old man in Oftringen, Aargau, Switzerland looking at pictures of my baby kind of churned my stomach.
Yankee Girl--I probably shouldn't call it a workshop. It's just one class, and it will be pretty basic: this is a blog, let's create a blog, be careful what you post on your blog, don't be an obnoxious blogger. If I tell them anything particularly interesting to veteran bloggers, though, I'll post it.
Annie--I do know, and I think it's a good thing. I (usually) really like having my blog searchable. I find it extremely amusing to see the kind of search engine keywords that bring people to my site ("toes growing slanted" "likes to make babies cry"), and I like it when people who are interested in libraries of the Festival find me and read my blog even if they're strangers.
As James pointed out, I do retain a lot of anonymity on my blog, so I feel okay with keeping my blog open, but I wish I'd realized earlier how much companies and organizations monitor what's said about them in the blogosphere. It doesn't necessarily change what I post, but it's good to be aware.
yes, I guess I never knew about the "corporate" realm of the blog. I blog infrequently and about records, generally, so...my information is perhaps less about me and more about products? Either way, its just a blog. I imagine social networking software contains more pitfalls?
Yeah, I'm probably a little hypersensitive about blog privacy because my job exposes me to the public more than I really want sometimes. I imagine that social networking sites have even more potential privacy problems.
you need to get over your fear of facebook. it's extremely private if you want it to be, to the point where people can't even search for you.
also, i guarantee you that people are going to want to know how to make their blogs 'cute', like with those scrapbooking backgrounds, etc.
They have the internet on computers now?
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