A recent article in Network World points out how important your online reputation is, especially when looking for a government job. The city of Bozeman, Montana is demanding that, as part of a background check, job applicants submit their usernames and passwords.

“Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.,” the City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.

The move raises significant privacy concerns and, as the article notes, may even violate the Terms of Service for these sites. Reputation.com advises readers to never disclose their passwords to anyone in order to maintain their online security and privacy.

Social media has taken center stage during the election crisis in Iran and emerged as a powerful vehicle for global information dissemination. With foreign media outlets unable to operate effectively inside the country, the international reporting torch has officially passed into the hands of social media, and grassroots social networking resources are now keeping the world informed of the latest crisis developments.

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Reports of violence between police and protesters are posted to Twitter in real time, while demonstration videos and images are shared on Flickr and YouTube accounts. Blogs detailing savage student beatings and daily protest schedules are also spreading rapidly. Social media is clearly fanning the flame of government resistance.

Social media is no stranger to this radical role (remember Twittering out of jail in Egypt), but this is one of the first instances blogs and social networking sites have been viewed as superior sources of information than traditional media outlets. For perhaps the first times in history, the world can watch on as citizens literally fight for their freedom against an authoritative regime and it is all thanks to social networking. Even the U.S. government believes in social media’s power, reportedly the U.S. State Department asked Twitter to delay its scheduled maintenance session so the latest Tweets from Iran could be monitored.

While these developments are promising, and historically relevant, there are still issues regarding social media’s long-term viability as a news source. Because anyone can create a blog or send a Tweet, it is impossible to know if a story is reliable. This means that, as with all web-based communications, users must look at everything tagged “Iran Election” with a critical eye. It is the classic double-edged sword of web content. While the Internet allows you to receive uncensored and up-to-the-minute information, it is up to you to verify the information. For tips on the best ways to follow the Iran Election using social media, check out Ben Parr’s recent post at Mashable.

What do you think? Has the explosion of Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking websites in relation to the Iran election crisis set a new precedent for how the world consumes breaking news stories?

Going through a divorce is a painful, difficult, and embarrassing process for any person. Between spending endless hours in court, paying exorbitant lawyer fees, and fighting off personal attacks from an angry ex, divorcees often feel like their life is spinning out of control. Now imagine how much worse it is when a divorce is played out in the public pages of Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter.

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In an interesting article for Time.com, Belinda Luscombe shares the following story.

Not long after Patrick told his wife Tammie he wanted a divorce, she posted an angry, hurt note on “the wall,” or public-comments section, of his Facebook page. Embarrassed that his colleagues, clients, church friends and family could see evidence of his marital woes, he deleted it and blocked his wife from seeing his page. A couple of days later, the IT worker in Florida–who asked that his last name not be used in this story — found alarmed messages from two Facebook friends in his inbox. Tammie had used a mutual friend’s account to view Patrick’s wall and e-mailed several women he had had exchanges with. He says her e-mails were borderline defamatory. She says they merely noted that he was married with children, a fact he had left off his Facebook profile. Either way: Ouch.

As if getting humiliated in public weren’t enough, the article goes on to highlight a number of instances where divorce attorneys have used information on a social networking site to gain a legal advantage in the courtroom.

Did your husband’s new girlfriend Twitter about getting a piece of jewelry? The court might regard that as marital assets being disbursed to a third party. Did your wife tell the court she’s incapable of getting a job? Then your lawyer should ask why she’s pursuing job interviews through LinkedIn.

Worst of all, there’s little to no legal recourse for victims of Internet slander, unless they want to involve their children, making an already painful situation worse.

There’s little the besmirched can do legally, unless there are children involved. Family-law courts routinely issue restraining orders to prevent one parent from disparaging another to a child. “The question is, If it’s on the Internet, can that speech be blocked?” says Stephen Mindel, a managing partner at Feinberg, Mindel, Brandt & Klein in Los Angeles. “The First Amendment is going to come into conflict with the family-law courts.”

As we’ve written about before on the Reputation.com Blog, people don’t always think through their actions when they’re online, operating under a deluded sense of anonymity. Unfortunately, the pain of an Internet attack is very real and has lasting consequences. When coupled with the already vitriolic atmosphere of a divorce, social networking sites are the perfect platform for an angry individual to launch a permanently scarring smear campaign.

As a society, we are still adjusting to the realities of the digital world. An offhanded remark on a blog can keep you from getting a job. A seemingly innocuous photo could keep you from getting into the college of your choice. Opening up your life to public scrutiny online has tremendous advantages (professional networking, making new friends, etc.) but there are also drawbacks. Taking a pro-active stance in managing how people perceive you online is critical to living a successful digital life.

Every generation has a fad that is both omnipresent and utterly foolish when viewed through the rear view mirror of history. Whether it was the Pet Rock of the 1970s or the Chia Pet of the 80′s, memories of American youth are littered with these cultural touch stones that seemed like a good idea for a small window of time.

For me and many others coming of age in the 1990′s, the fad that was unavoidable was POGS.

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Remember POGS? The game was ubiquitous for a few years, and even though I remember thinking “Hey, I don’t really see why everyone is playing this game,” I wound up buying some POGS and slammers and participating in POG culture anyway.

Why did I do this? There are many reasons, but mainly I did it because all my friends were doing it and I wanted something to do with them that we could all relate to. But then, before I had mastered the art of slamming the hell out of cardboard milk caps with Smurfs painted on them, the cultural winds shifted. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment in time, but almost as quickly as POGS took over middle schools across the country, they were gone. Replaced by Pokemon or Hypercolor or some other unspeakable fad, the American love affair with POGS was at an end.

Why do I bring this up on the Reputation.com Blog? There are many reasons, but the main one is that all of the hype over Social Media looks a lot like POGS to me. From the tech sites to the blogs to the MSM, it seems that everyone has a twitter and a myspace and a blog and a facebook these days. Why? I think for the same cultural reasons that drove POGS to such meteoric heights. People want to connect with one another, sure. And these technologies have altered the ways that we connect with one another for the better.

But on some level I fear that social media is just a fad. Or a series of tech fads. In just a few short years friend sites have already come and gone much like the POGS and Beanie Babies of yore. Remember Friendster? That site is just as culturally relevant today as Teddy Ruxpin is. Unless individuals and companies can find innovative and valuable ways to connect people, the next social networking site could be nothing more than a pile of POGS.

Readers are encouraged to share how they derive value from social media in the comments below. They should also opine on the best fads from the past 40 years.

A week after winning the Webby Artist of the Year Award for his innovative use of the Internet in distributing his music to the world, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has apparently sworn off of social media, saying “I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it’s now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.” To see the full extent of Reznor’s remarks, you can follow this link.

Basically, Reznor is tired of having to moderate the hateful and personal attacks of all the trolls, spammers, and, as he so eloquently states in the above quote, idiots of the Internet. To be honest, I don’t blame him for his position. As we’ve written countless times before on this blog, when people post comments on the web they simply do not think about the real world consequences of their actions. I mean, if you repeated just a few of the things you saw in an average forum thread you’d get your teeth punched in.

As sad (and accurate) as Reznor’s observations on the Internet are however, I can’t help but believe that if we all worked together, we could make the web a better place. Not too sound like too much of an idealist, but isn’t that what got us all so excited about social media in the first place; the chance to connect with the world at the touch of a button.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not naive. I know there will always be trolls and spammers on the Internet. Nevertheless, I think there is a lot of potential for improvement and it starts with each one of us. Call it the Golden Rule 2.0 – “Do unto others on the Internet as you would have them do unto you.”

Do you think Trent Reznor’s assessment of the web is right or wrong? Leave a comment and tell me why you think so.