Famous Bloggers - The Dangers of Saying What You Really Think

Deepak Chopra's latest blog postings raise some interesting questions about what happens when famous people blog. Whether you're well-known for writing books, singing songs, or kissing babies, blogging is a whole new ball game for your public image.

In your previous career, you can manage your public image through your PR people, by controlling who you talk to, what pictures are taken, what events you attend etc. In the blogosphere, only your words mediate your image. If you open yourself open to comments, your image is then mediated by another nameless and faceless person, who is possibly hostile towards you. On top of this, the nature of blogging encourages you to publish a lot, and edit very little. Despite the fact that people will excuse the odd spelling mistake or mangled sentence, they cannot avoid judging you based on a poorly conceived rant written at 2 o'clock in the morning. For famous people, this exposes much more than for the average faceless blogger, since people are able to combine previous knowledge of you and your work along with your blog entry to make new assumptions about what you REALLY think.

I imagine as more and more famous people take to blogging, there will be more than a few careers ruined because of some ill-conceived words on a webpage. There might also be a growing business for PR people who understand the dynamics of the blogosphere.