THINK before you hit "publish"

Being a savvy Internet user, I know that Feedburner "provides custom RSS feeds and management tools to bloggers, podcasters, and other web-based content publishers." (I found that definition on Wikipedia) This is a very good thing if one wants to reach a vast readership, which I do. So, after much trial and error, I finally figured out how to use Feedburner to forward my blogs to various Websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and BlogCatalog.

This means millions of potential readers—500 million on Facebook alone! Is that fantastic or what? Well, on one hand, it is every blogger's dream to have such a huge audience. But on the other hand, consider "or what."

Let's say something is driving me crazy—the way Congress is behaving, perhaps. That is definitely one of my favorite subjects for a rant. So, I write a scathing post, check the spelling and punctuation, and hit the publish button. Immediately, millions upon millions of people will know I am not happy with Congress right now. But what exactly did I say?

I view the blog post and must admit I came on a little strong. Maybe I could soften it a bit. Well, no, I can't. It's too late to rethink my pearls of wisdom when they are instantaneously soaring through cyberspace. They are out there, published, and very public.

Whoops. Maybe I should put a little note to self on my computer. It will simply ask "Do you really want 500 million people to read this?" No? Then, do not under any circumstances hit the publish button!