Mark Franek on the hazards of user-generated content

Mark Franek, a teacher with Friend School connections, recently wrote an interesting piece in the Christian Science Monitor called "Bring integrity to the Internet." Here's a taste:

The Internet, led by the pervasive power of Google's ranking system, has become an extension of your résumé. And here's the real kicker: When thwarted by a webmaster who refuses to give ground, an average citizen can have a very hard time getting links that lead to offensive material off the first page of Google's search results.

The stories are interesting to me as a fan of user-generated content. I love how the internet is empowering grassroots fact-checking and starting to allow for a distribution of information that is bringing transparency to some stubborn institutions.

Mark is a great writer and I've long enjoyed his blog. He's a public persona, a journalist and educator and he's not afraid of voicing strong opinions. So how can he protect his reputation? The most effective way is to be online in many different types of settings so that when your name goes into Google, people are seeing your content. Web 2.0 profile-based services like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr are giving us online footprints that rank high and solidify our online presence. When people ask why we should be on all of these different services, one good answer is that we're protecting our reputations.

I'll try to return to this soon in a more technical way over on my Martin Kelley consulting site.