Dan Tynan has a wonderful article over at ITWorld.com on why search engine reputation management is important, despite critics saying otherwise. He is right, but best of all–he’s hilarious while being right.

Here’s the deal. Not all of us will have lousy online reputations or commit indiscretions that are unfortunately captured for posterity. So if the choice for a job comes down to two candidates, both of whom are equally qualified but one whose online portfolio includes photos of him snorting cocaine off the breasts of a prostitute, we all know who’s more likely to get the call. (Unless, of course, the job requires familiarity with drugs and working girls – like, say, US Senator or Governor of New York.)

That last quip aside, Tynan’s argument is air-tight. While Tynan may not be worried about ever having to find another job, the rest of us certainly are.

http://www.itworld.com/career/105121/online-reputation-matter-does-matter-no-matter-what-michael-arrington-says?source=peer2peerpromo

A spotless online reputation is one way in which smaller companies can take market shares from the larger, more established, businesses. Facebook has been a very helpful tool to many of those businesses because their “fan page” platform allows those small businesses to set up online portals quickly and at no expense. The executives at Facebook have noticed the trend too. One of their regional vice Presidents said this of the new phenomenon:

“I think last year was a really interesting year. We saw a lot of businesses get into this experimental phase with social media, and are now seeing the results. A lot of people questioned it all last year, but this year’s it’s about moving on and getting involved.”

“There are businesses now, small businesses, who are finding really creative ways to leverage the platform. You can take it to the extreme with a brand like Coca-Cola, but there are heaps of smaller businesses doing the same sorts of things.”

Seems rather accurate to me. Probably tens of thousands of small businesses have created fan pages on facebook in order to boost or repair their online reputation.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet/20100413-how-your-business-should-be-using-facebook.html

The Financial Times had an interesting, if misguided, article from a lady named Lucy Kellaway recently. She seeks to prove online reputations don’t matter–and in doing so she attempts to use the reputation of Jesus Christ. This is instructive, but not for the reason she thinks. Jesus Christ has nearly universal name recognition–therefore his online reputation matters very little.

What does all this do to the reputation of Jesus? I don’t think it does anything. This stuff is random, low grade and I would be amazed if any of it affected what anyone feels about him one way or another.

The only thing that Jesus’s online presence tells you is that he is pretty famous. A lot of people are interested in him, though not quite as much as in, say, Lady Gaga, who, on the day of my tests, was tweeted about five times as much.

She doesn’t give any reasons why she chose Jesus or why she couldn’t have profiled the online reputation of someone else. What she doesn’t say has conveyed more meaning here than what she has said. She could have picked Toyota, Tiger Woods, Chrysler, or Congressman Alan Grayson–all of whom would’ve been better examples of how reputation risk management matters.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fae79802-3ff3-11df-8d23-00144feabdc0.html