And this is one of the reasons I haven't fully participated in creating an online persona. I ran through some of my arguements here:

http://www.brazencareerist.com/2009/01/21/transparency-in-the-blogospher...

Once you put something online, you immediately lose any control on how it's used, how it's perceived and interpreted, or who makes use of it.

However, be comforted. Even if you are writing about technical subjects from your knowledge and expertise, you'll probably get savaged anyway by those who relish nothing more than a good arguement. Just check out Slashdot.org and you'll see what I'm talking about.

You have to really think about your objective for putting information online. Why do I want people to know this about me? What will potential employers think of this?

Personally, I do like to put out my opinions, but any serious personal information remains private. And I post under a pseudonym that only close friends and family know.

Thank you for your comment, Rob. I think that's a very good rule to live by - I'll try to stick to it, though I'm still learning and am bound to make mistakes. I guess you live and you learn!

jrandom42 - thank you for providing the link to your post; I will definitely read through that! I do take comfort in the fact that the people who posted about me apparently have nothing better to do in their spare time than write mean things about a lot of people. Thank you, also, for bringing up those important questions. I think there are still some things I need to consider about how I wish to be perceived online.

Nicole, I'm right with you. I'm hoping that being active online will show that one "bad" post about me will be outweighed by other "good" posts and that a potential employer will see things the same way. I agree that you need to stand by what you say - I wrote truthfully and I'm not ashamed of it - and hopefully we will all rise above the maliciousness of those who seek to make themselves feel better by making others look worse.

Thank you all so much for the comments.

Office Newb, I agree whole-heartedly! My main issue what the people weren't even commenting to me directly - they were going to a forum site and posting these things and I only happened upon it after Googling myself. But you're right: it could be so much worse. Sticks and stones after all :)

Side note - the insults people have hurled at you are having the opposite effect of what they intended! My intrigue is peaked and I'm heading over to your blog now!

Mark, thank you so much for providing the interesting article! It is a great read and has offered some wonderful advice.

If I'm completely honest with myself, Breanna, the comments are not THAT bad. They could be much, much worse. But the first bit of criticism stings the worst, I think. This is my first experience with anonymous "haters" who make it their mission to post negative comments about everyone they read about.

Note: this is not the first experience I've had with "haters" in general, but in the past they have at least blasted the negativity to my face or signed their name on a Letter to the Editor (when I wrote opinion articles in college).

The fact that I don't know who these people really are (they never post with their real names) is what stung the most. And the imagined invasion of privacy (I'm not delusional; I know there is practically no privacy online anymore) made the hurt even worse.

But I guess negativity comes with the territory of putting yourself out there. Not everyone will agree with what you have to say and there are people who would rather attack you than your ideas; I've accepted this and try to look at the upside of all of this - it has definitely sparked an interesting discussion.

I think this whole online presence thing gets blown out of proportion. After all, how much different is it really from face-to-face? The details differ but the fundamental concepts are the same.

Above, jrandom said "once you put something online, you immediately lose any control on how it's used, how it's perceived and interpreted, or who makes use of it." Similarly, once you say something out loud in an interview or to a contact in your network, you immediately lose control on how they talk about you and how you are perceived and interpreted.

Online and written word has an advantage that you get to go back and edit your thoughts if need be (on your own blog at least). But once you have blurted out something dumb vocally, it's said and done.

I also worried about it and still do, but I think it's a waste of our energy to do so.

Your best strategy to beating this type of problem is to build your own site and learn some SEO strategies. Then when people google your name, your website filled with content that you want to be seen will show up. It's not necessarily the easiest way, but at least you bury bad sites deep into the search results.

I check up on my name and email on search engines every once in awhile. Usually I find very little like a copy of a graduation program. Most recently I found someone with the same name who had some trouble with the police. Im not really sure if it's recent since Ive never seen this search result before. Those are the only 2 results that surface. Im job searching and I hope people dont see the name and automatically assume it's me with out looking at the persons location or references.

Google now has something called Google profile.

You can create your own personal page on Google. When someone searches your name, your profile is on the first page of results.
You can write a short blurb about yourself and your experience. You can also allow people to contact you through your profile.
Best of all, you can add links. For example, you can link to your networking profiles. That way, you won't be mistaken for someone else.

More info can be found at http://www.google.com/profiles .

Hi Meghan - I just became aware of Google profiles yesterday, they looked like a good idea, I remembered this post of yours and so I added the above link. I didn't know about Google using the info for more targeted advertising and search results. So no I haven't created a Google profile and therefore can't give you my opinion of it. Thanks for your input, though, and will watch to see what becomes of them in the future.
Mark

Meghan - As long as you are proud of your original content and its something that you wouldn't mind telling an employer in a conversation on the subject, I wouldn't worry about people slamming you. People will disagree with you and write about it; thats what makes the internet great. I would just keep writing and your good will outweigh the bad. By the way, I also googled your name and after four pages, I didn't see anything bad. I usually don't get past page 2/3 when thinking about hiring, so I wouldn't worry so much.