N’Gai Croal had an interesting column in Newsweek, “Thoughtcasting: U R So Vain: Twitter and Tumblr make it so easy to publish whatever’s on my mind, they started to seduce me into actually doing so.”

He asks a question more of us — including myself — should ask: “Just because I can publish my every thought, does it mean that I should?”

He also asked his “followers” — a grandiose and inaccurate term, I think — about what sort of things are appropriate, and got the following responses:

• “Things I would talk about on my blog.”
• “Anything I can be seen to be doing in public.”
• “Things that wouldn’t disqualify me from running for public office.”
• “The Mom test … would I want my mom seeing it or not.”

“I’m still figuring out this thoughtcasting stuff,” Croal writes, “but Mom and common sense sound like a good place to start.”

I agree.