by Helium01

Created on: May 12, 2009

Dangers of blogging

Blogging can be an instant advertising venue for your services and products. It can be a free sample to bring in customers to buy books and newsletters. It can even be a soap box which draws enough readers to enable advertisers to pay you for space on your blog.

Blogging is still a relatively new phenomenon, and as such many people are writing blogs without much thought to the long term effects of what they write. For whatever reason someone blogs, there are several matters to be kept in mind to do it intelligently.

1. Blogging is instant. What you post is immediately available. Don't write what you may not be able to delete quickly enough.

2. Blogging is international. What you post is available all over the world at the speed of light. Do not write or post anything with any expectation of privacy. At any moment someone at any corner of the world may be reading what you write.

3. Blogging is infinite. Whether you write embarrassing details about your ex-husband or share personal information that may appear negative in a background check, these personal details can be infinite in life when posted on the internet. Don't write what you do not want others to read later.

4. Blog content is impossible to control. With website caching, copying of content into other blogs, and message forums you cannot control, your content will likely be searchable and findable years later. Assume that the content is both immortal and forever entrenched in the fabric of the Internet. Do not write what you do not want recorded forever.

5. Blog content is easily taken out of context. Content is often chopped up into single sentences and paragraphs when posted elsewhere. You may see a partial reference to original content without a link to the source. Everything that you write has the potential to be misconstrued or misunderstood. Don't write content that can easily be parsed into contentious paragraphs and forwarded. And if you have caveats to a statement, have them immediately preceding or following the statements that they qualify. This reduces the risk of a sentence or section being taken out of context.

Blogging provides the opportunity to express yourself, get your opinions out into the world, and earn money while doing so. The challenge is creating a blog intelligently and with forethought to avoid potential problems down the road. Be careful with what you create and your blogs will stand the test of time.

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