I grew up in a corporate culture over almost quarter of a century, that highlighted the importance of not engaging in any communication with the outside world that would be embarrassing for the individual and/or the firm to see in the Wall Street Journal the next day.

In those days this applied of course to snail mail and all traditional forms of written communication, but now of course covers email, blogging and every eventual mode of digital communication.

Teenagers and college kids of course don't have the advantage of this warning, and if they do, are too convinced of their reputational immortality to worry otherwise.

And it's not just about their behavior on services like MySpace and Facebook, but their conduct all across the web, including services like instant messaging, SMS texting and the like. They are leaving reputational footprints that in many cases will be a matter of permanent record, potentially increasing their reputational mortality.

So it's an important distinction for us to keep in mind, and whenever appropriate, try and get them to "get it".

This could be a generational statement about the public opinion of the media. I guess it was appropriate that MySpace ended up in the hands of News Corp.