UberCEO: Fortune 100 CEOs and Social Media - "...top CEOs in the country appear to be mostly absent from the social media community. That's the result from research we conducted over the past several weeks. We looked at Fortune's 2009 list of the top 100 CEOs to determine how many were using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, or had a blog. The results show a miserable level of engagement."

Marketing Yourself with Webinars - Attorney Wells H. Anderson recommends presenting periodic webinars as an effective, direct and efficient technique to attract new clients and professionals who refer business to you.

The End of Institutional Repositories & the Beginning of Social Academic Research Service: An Enhanced Role For Libraries - Stuart Basefsky advocates broadening the concept of institutional repositories (IRs) to serve as full-fledged electronic libraries and documents how they can then serve the greater purpose of collecting, disseminating, analyzing and exchanging useful digital information for academic purposes.

Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent - By Bruce Etling, John Kelly, Robert Faris, and John Palfrey - Internet & Democracy Case Study Series, June 2009. Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2009-06

Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Strategies for Success from Multicultural Women Attorneys - "This is a unique, inspirational collection of letters from 44 experienced women attorneys of color to the next generation outlining various roadmaps for success in the legal profession as a minority woman attorney. The book is organized by practice settings: (a) large and midsize firms; (b) solo and small firm practices; (c) public service, including government, nonprofits, executive roles in government and nonprofits, the judiciary, and elected officials; (d) in-house practices; and (e) academia. Following the essays in each chapter are tips for success from the authors featured in that chapter; these tips serve as a quick reference for you to refer to for inspiration. The essays end with a response from a sister/daughter from the next generation."

From Law Shucks, the Layoff Tracker: "Major law firms are turning out to be just as susceptible to general economic conditions as every other industry. Historically, layoffs by top-tier firms were kept quiet and were done on a one-off basis. We’re trying to shed a little light on the situation...As of May 9, 2009, over 11,584 people have been laid off by major law firms (4,671 lawyers / 6,913 staff) since January 1, 2008."

Law Firms Embrace Business School 101: "At a growing number of law firms, top attorneys are being trained like business people, using executive education courses designed to strengthen management and business skills. Some firms have been actively teaching lawyers business skills for the past half-decade. But this year's shrinking client lists -- and profits -- have encouraged more law firms to invest in management education."

A Current Glance at Women in the Law 2008 - Women in the Legal Profession, American Bar Association Market Research Department.

Lessons of The Am Law 100 - Last year was The Am Law 100's worst in 17 years--and the falloff in premium work is only partly to blame. The American Lawyer, By Aric Press and John O'Connor, May 01, 2009.

Proactive Leadership & The Role of Information: Identifying Strategic Networks of Information - Networking is supposed to be essential to successful leaders. But what is the importance of networking conceptually? People are only one form of this vital leadership resource. Stuart Basefksy explains how would one go about developing expanded networks of information and sources.

"According to Hildebrandt ... law firm merger activity significantly increased during the first quarter of 2009, with a total of 33 completed law firm mergers and acquisitions involving US law firms. This compares with 22 completed US mergers in the first quarter of 2008, and 23 in the first quarter of 2007. Six additional mergers announced during the first quarter are to be completed during the second quarter of 2009, for a total of 39 thus far in 2009. Lisa Smith, head of Hildebrandt's Law Firm Strategy and Merger Practice, said “As we predicted at the beginning of the year the pace of consolidation in the legal industry has accelerated. We continue to see high interest in mergers and acquisitions, particularly as firms complete their internal restructuring processes and turn to strategic positioning.”

News release: "In this difficult economy, lawyers can get help with their careers, their practices and their well-being with just a mouse click. The American Bar Association’s new Economic Recovery Resources Web Portal offers a wide range of assistance for coping with tough times including information on job searching, personal development and career transition, law practice management tips, handling stress, and more. The resources Web site at http://new.abanet.org/economicrecovery consists of six topic areas: job search and networking, career transition, practice management, professional development, stress management and savings."

Burney's Legal Tech Reviews: Verizon Wireless USB760 Modem and the Cradlepoint CTR500 Mobile Broadband Travel Router - For consistent, resilient mobile internet connectivity, Brett Burney recommends these three small, versatile products that are cost effective and reliable.

Post-Conference Workshop on Competitive Intelligence, April 2, 2009 - 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM, Sabrina I. Pacifici, Law Librarian, & Founder/Editor/Publisher, LLRX.com and beSpacific.com

The Layoff List - Employment shifts at The Am Law 200, Global 100, and Other Firms of Note - scroll down the page to see the regularly updated postings about layoffs [coverage is currently 2008-2009] of staff and attorneys.

"Here are preliminary, partial 2008 financial results for The Am Law 100, the highest-grossing firms in the United States. Gross revenue numbers are for legal work only and exclude disbursements. They are rounded to the nearest $500,000. Head counts are full-time equivalents, as of August 31, 2008. To be eligible for The Am Law 100, a firm must maintain a plurality of its lawyers in the U.S. Results will be updated here on a daily basis. Final rankings and full results for The Am Law 100 will be published in The American Lawyer's May issue and on AmericanLawyer.com. The Am Law Second Hundred will be published in June."

E-Discovery Update: Revisiting ESI Agreements and Court Orders - Conrad J. Jacoby focuses on the new requirement that litigants must meet early in a dispute to discuss the scope of discovery work to reach agreement on how best to proceed with the discovery of potentially relevant electronically stored information (“ESI”). What happens, though, when fundamental assumptions used to reach agreement at that early stage in the case turn out to be incorrect?

Six Questions and a Strategy for Campus-wide Information Competence. At Cornell University Library (CUL) a committee was established in 2005 to address the issue of information literacy at the university. The committee did extensive research on this topic and developed an approach for seeking solutions. Stuart Basefsky presents three exhibits to accomplish this objective.

"Hildebrandt and Citi Private Bank...present this 2009 Client Advisory highlighting the trends that we perceived in the legal market in 2008, as well as the trends that we believe will impact the market in 2009."

Ahead of the Curve: In 2009, Your Lawyers Are Your Best Knowledge Management Resource - Gretta Rusanow outlines her recommendations on why this year presents an excellent opportunity to work on those long-desired collections of models, best practice documents, sample clauses and know how files.

The Upside of the Downturn – Time to Work on Your Know How: Knowhow expert Gretta Rusanow highlights content as the focus for law firm knowledge management plans this year.

E-Discovery Update: Pushing Back Against Hardcopy ESI Productions - Conrad J. Jacoby addresses how critical technology issues related to document authenticity and document-associated metadata have left fewer lawyers willing to accept e-mail messages and other electronic documents in print format. He argues that litigants choosing to produce electronically stored information in hardcopy format should be prepared to provide more complete electronic copies of their production, even when it isn’t initially requested by opposing counsel.

Fulbright & Jaworski LLP 2008 Litigation Trends Survey, 253 pages, PDF, prepared by Greenwood Surveys, July 2008. [Note: there were 358 participants in this study: 251 in the U.S. and 100 in the UK]

Catalyst Group - Beyond Red and Blue: Insights into the Design of Presidential Candidate Websites, August 6, 2008 - "The results of our research indicated that aesthetics play an important role in users’ evaluation of a candidate’s site, but that ease-of-use may ultimately carry the day as the quality that people value most."

AmLaw Daily: "In the last two years or so, though, Web development and marketing professionals say law firms have gotten increasingly serious about the Web. Slowly, the gap in quality between Am Law 200 Web sites and those of Fortune 500 companies has narrowed, as more and more firms put in the investment and manpower to make their Web sites more than just regurgitations of what can be found in print."

Why and What Lawyers Should Consider Outsourcing: This article by Ron Friedmann reviews the history of and logic behind legal outsourcing. It then outlines some of the current legal outsourcing options. A detailed discussion of each option is not possible in one article. Instead, the final section takes a close look at one, outsourcing secretarial and word processing tasks.

Pew Internet and American Life Project - Podcast Downloading 2008, 8/28/2008, Mary Madden Sydney Jones

News release: "U.S. lawyers are free to outsource legal work, including to lawyers or nonlawyers outside the country, if they adhere to ethics rules requiring competence, supervision, protection of confidential information, reasonable fees and not assisting unauthorized practice of law.

Those are the conclusions of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, which describes outsourcing as a salutary trend in a global economy. Many lawyers do outsource work, using lawyers or nonlawyers as independent contractors, hiring them directly or through intermediaries and on temporary or ongoing bases, says the committee.

Outsourcing can reduce client costs and enable small firms to provide labor intensive services such as large, discovery intense litigation, even though the firms might not maintain sufficient ongoing staff to handle the work, according to a new ethics opinion issued today. Ethics Opinion 08-451 details ethics obligations of lawyers and firms that do elect to outsource legal work.

"The National Cancer Institute presents this 19th monograph in the Tobacco Control Monograph Series, The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use. Monograph 19 provides a critical, scientific review and synthesis of the current evidence regarding the power of the media, both to encourage and to discourage tobacco use. It is the most current and comprehensive summary of the scientific literature on media communication in tobacco promotion and tobacco control. Research included in the review comes from the disciplines of marketing, psychology, communication, statistics, epidemiology, and public health. All are vital to understanding how exposure to the media influences tobacco use."

Technology Tools for Information Management - Roger V. Skalbeck and Barbara Fullerton's share a fast paced presentation of 19 practical, low cost and innovative tech tools they respectively use on a regular basis. So if you are looking for ideas to improve your use of Outlook, RSS, Adobe, and enhance your presentations and collaborative goals, this article is a must read.

Justia: Find Attorneys, Legal Aid and Legal Services - Arranged by practice areas, states and metro areas.

Law.com - Who Represents America's Biggest Companies 2008: Labor Pains

2008 Best Law Firms for Women Announced by Working Mother and Flex-Time Lawyers - FindLaw: "The legal profession is in a work/life crisis, with 78% of associates leaving law firms by their fifth year and nearly 50% of women lawyers leaving the profession at some point in their careers. The question is whether law firms will ever abandon their traditional practices to meet today's rising female workforce demands? They might have to, according to a special report in the August/September issue of Working Mother magazine. Produced in partnership with Flex-Time Lawyers, the report names the Best Law Firms for Women and examines the challenges and opportunities afforded to female lawyers."

Reference from Coast to Coast: Summer Musings - Jan Bissett and Margi Heinen provide a timely and valuable refresher on a range of well-sourced, reliable, topical websites, guides, print and program materials useful for summer associate legal research training.

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission today announced the results of a study on food marketing to children and adolescents. The report, Marketing Food to Children and Adolescents: A Review of Industry Expenditures, Activities, and Self-Regulation [see also Appendices A-F], finds that 44 major food and beverage marketers spent $1.6 billion to promote their products to children under 12 and adolescents ages 12 to 17 in the United States in 2006. The report finds that the landscape of food advertising to youth is dominated by integrated advertising campaigns that combine traditional media, such as television, with previously unmeasured forms of marketing, such as packaging, in-store advertising, sweepstakes, and Internet. These campaigns often involve cross-promotion with a new movie or popular television program. Analyzing this data, the report calls for all food companies “to adopt and adhere to meaningful, nutrition-based standards for marketing their products to children under 12.”

76% See Business Benefits – May Influence Job Choice for 46% of Users: "Australian employers' approach to on-line social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace may be influencing their efforts to recruit young workers, according to new research by law firm Deacons. In the Deacons’ Social Networking Survey 2008, almost half of those who used social networking sites at work said that if given a choice between two jobs equal in all other respects, they would choose an employer which allowed access to these sites over one which did not. The research found almost a third of 16-24 year olds and a quarter of 25-34 year olds who access the Internet from work use it at some time for on-line social networking activity. The results highlight the challenges organisations face when it comes to managing the impact of so-called Web 2.0 technologies, says Nick Abrahams, head of Deacons' Technology, Media and telecommunications law practice."

Workshop 8 – Monitoring & Current Awareness: Mining Blogs & RSS for Research, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM, Sunday April 6, 2008 - Sabrina I. Pacifici, Law Librarian, Founder/Editor/Publisher, LLRX.com and Author, beSpacific.com.

"The new AIDS.gov home page provides easier access to site information and offers new features." Prominently displayed at the top right side of the page are links to: a well designed and organized Blog, Podcasts to which users may listen and for which transcripts are provided, RSS Feeds to the podcasts, resource announcements and alerts. Also included are AIDS/HIV related feeds from other e-gov sites. All around, this is a tremendous step forward in e-gov design, with improved site navigation, useful and accessible content and thoughtful implementation of current applications.

Brits vs. Americans: Who's Better Prepared to Weather a Recession? Richard Lloyd, The American Lawyer, March 24, 2008: "Traditionally, U.S. firms have benefited from the sheer size of the domestic U.S. economy, the American penchant for pursuing litigation at all costs and large bankruptcy proceedings that provided a seemingly endless gravy train for law firms. The U.K. firms, in contrast, do not see the same upside from countercyclical litigation work. There is simply not the same litigation climate in the United Kingdom, and litigators make up a far smaller proportion of most English firms. At New York's Cravath Swaine & Moore, around 50 percent of the firm's lawyers are in litigation, while at Herbert Smith -- arguably, London's premier brand in litigation -- around 35 percent of attorneys are litigators."

Official Google Blog: "Today, we're excited to launch Google For Non-Profits, a one-stop shop for tools to help advance your organization's mission in a smart, cost-efficient way. This site features ideas and tutorials for how you can use Google tools to promote your work, raise money and operate more efficiently. And to get inspired, you'll also find examples of innovative ways other non-profits are using our products to further their causes."

Press release, December 10, 2007 - "The way communicators dispense information is out of sync with the way consumers use media, according to Media, Myths & Realities, a comprehensive survey of media usage among consumers and communications professionals conducted by global public relations firm Ketchum and the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center. Advice from family and friends is the No. 1 source that consumers turn to when making a variety of decisions – ranging from purchasing consumer electronics to planning a vacation – and advice from an expert rates highest when making medical decisions and purchases based on a product’s environmental impact. Despite the strong evidence that friends, family and experts play a key role in influencing decisions, only 24 percent of communicators report having a word-of-mouth program in place."

Google Docs Blog: "It's been two months since we launched Google Presentations and already we've got new toys [Link to the presentation detailing the new features]...Embeddable Presentations, Importing slides from other presentations, Drag and drop image insertion, Rearranging slides, Changing the background, Prettier toolbar."

Am Law 200 Managing Partners Issue Fog Advisory for 2008, David Bario, The American Lawyer, 12-03-2007 [note: free registration required to read the links that follow): "Each fall, when this magazine surveys the leaders of The Am Law 200 about the state of their firms, the responses are awash in sunny optimism -- at least, they have been until now. This year, for the first time since we began polling them in 2003, a substantial number of firm leaders admit to being uneasy about the future. More than a quarter reported that they were uncertain about their firm's prospects next year, and a few said they felt downright pessimistic."

Press release: "The Commission has approved the issuance of a Federal Register notice announcing the start of its decennial review of the FTC’s Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, 16 CFR Part 435 (Mail Order Rule). As detailed in the notice, the Commission is seeking comment on whether to retain the Rule. To guide discussion of this issue, the Commission is seeking information on the Rule’s costs and benefits. Assuming, based on the public response to the notice, the Commission decides to retain the Rule, it also seeks to determine whether it should make three changes to the Rule in response to changes in technology and marketing practices that have occurred since the Rule was last updated in 1993."

Press release: "Working Mother magazine, the authoritative source for career mothers, and Flex-Time Lawyers LLC, a national consulting firm advising attorneys and legal employers on work-life balance and the retention and advancement of women, today announced the list of the 2007 Working Mother & Flex-Time Lawyers Best Law Firms for Women. The winning firms are notable for their work/life and women-friendly policies—including flex-time, child care and women-focused mentoring, leadership and networking programs—as they set new standards to retain and promote top female legal talent."

Electronic 2007 Law Librarian Survey from ALM Research - Survey Says Librarians Like Their Jobs but Are Displeased With Vendors - "Electronic research was supposed to replace books and lower costs, but it's done neither -- and librarians aren't happy about it."

THE CHARTS

Happy 4th. From Computerworld, this completely non-holiday related article - Law firm boosts cellular signal in new offices - New system enables employees to use cell phones in offices three floors underground - may be of interest, especially to colleagues here in Washington, D.C.

Brand Awareness and the Evaluation of Search Results, by Bernard J. Jansen (Pennsylvania State University), Mimi Zhang (Pennsylvania State University), Ying Zhang (Pennsylvania State University)

"In a custom report created for ClickZ News, Hitwise measured traffic market share of the candidate sites. The measurement firm found traffic to Democratic candidate sites was top heavy, favoring Clinton's, Obama's and Edwards's sites. HillaryClinton.com garnered nearly a third of visits among Democratic candidate sites in May. BarackObama.com attracted almost 28 percent, and JohnEdwards.com drew 23 percent of visitors to Dem campaign sites last month."

The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0, David C. Wyld, Associate Professor Southeastern Louisiana University (99 pages, PDF)

According to the National Law Journal, The 50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America.

Am Law 200: The Gap Widens - They compete in the same markets, but the Second Hundred and its bigger sibling, The Am Law 100, are growing apart, Jim Schroeder, The American Lawyer, June 1, 2007

American Library Association: "As part of its effort to support libraries and librarians seeking to improve their protection of library users’ privacy, ALA is making available new tools to help libraries conduct audits of its privacy policies and procedures. Developed by ALA during its own 2003 privacy audit, each tool is a document template that can be adopted and changed to serve the needs of the individual institution."

ALM: "How do companies select counsel in foreign countries? What tools and resources do companies use to select overseas counsel? What are the "must-have" qualities for overseas outside counsel? See ALM's new study, How U.S. Companies Select International Outside Counsel."

Harmony Helps: A Progress Report on State Government Internet Presence - March 2007 - "This brief explores how state web portals have matured and examines the impact of the 2003 expansion of the dot-gov domain to state and local governments; trends in state portal domain naming conventions; trends in Internet portal branding and marketing; the alignment of agency websites and state email addressing with the state portal; areas of cross-boundary collaboration for online services; and areas for future progress in cross-boundary collaboration for online services."

Table of Contents for LLRX.com - January 15, 2007 issue:

"Today OJR welcomes Nora Paul of the University of Minnesota and Laura Ruel of the University of North Carolina as contributing writers on the site. Each month, Nora and Laura will examine current research on news website user interfaces and storytelling techniques. Their articles will help news site producers and editors pick the best ways to package their information to increase their site's traffic and influence."

The December 2006 issue of ABA's Law Practice Magazine features a profile of Sabrina I. Pacifici, founder, editor, publisher of LLRX.com and author of beSpacific. After a decade of publishing the free webzine on law and technology resources, and with more than four years and 11,000 postings on beSpacific.com, I am delighted to continue my active participation in such a expert profession, both here and abroad, which values innovation, creativity, contribution and community. Thank you for all your support, and I look forward to publishing your articles in 2007.

The following articles are available in the December 2006 issue of LLRX.com:

Federal Trade Commission Public Hearings on Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade, November 6 - 8, 2006.

'NLJ 250' Shows Strong Law Firm Growth Continuing - "The top 250 law firms gained 4 percent more lawyers; partnership numbers grew by 5 percent," by Leigh Jones, The National Law Journal, November 13, 2006.

Chicago Tribune: Lawyers face right to blog - "Online journals that contain legal discussions and background information are challenging traditional practices on attorney advertising."

AmLaw Tech Survey: Law Firms Play Variations on Old Themes - "The 11th annual survey finds firms expanding IT while adopting new versions of old standards."

"The Chief Legal Officer Survey ...conducted by Altman Weil, Inc. and LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell® reports a dramatic decrease in Chief Legal Officer (CLO) dissatisfaction with their outside counsel."

Press release, October 4, 2006: "As information security concerns among consumers and other customer constituencies rise, just 29 percent of marketers say that their firm has a crisis containment plan in case of a security breach, according to findings of a major research initiative by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council. Without such a plan and other security strategies in place, companies are at risk of losing hundreds of million of dollars in market value and loss of reputation and brand trust, according to the study's findings."

From Primary Research Group (via Lawsites): "This study is based on a survey of 40 law firms with a mean size of 211 lawyers; data is broken out by size of law firm (by number of total lawyers) and by number of practice groups...In each firm a major marketing official answered questions regarding editorial staff, website development and marketing, use of blogs, listservs, eNewsletters and other cyberspace promotion and information vehicles. The report presents hard data on the use of search engine placement consultants, click through rates on eNewsletters, number of unique visitors to the firm website, and presents data on law firm spending plans for a broad range of Emarketing vehicles." [available in PDF and print, $$, Link to purchase info]

Press release: "According to "Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Law Firms," a report by The ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, women of color experience unique disadvantages based on race in addition to gender. White women experience such events based on gender alone, men of color experience such events based on race alone, and white men have virtually no first-hand or personal experience with discrimination."

Blawg: Marketing Your Practice with a Weblog, by Jim Calloway and Tom Mighell.

Press release: "JupiterResearch, a leading authority on the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on business, reveals that 35 percent of large companies plan to institute corporate Weblogs this year. Combined with the existing deployed base of 34 percent, nearly 70 percent of all site operators will have implemented corporate blogs by the end of 2006. According to a new report, Corporate Weblogs: Deployment, Promotion, and Measurement, currently 64 percent of executives spend less than $500,000 to deploy and manage corporate Weblogs."

Virtual Reference in the Age of Pop-Up Blockers, Firewalls, and Service Pack 2, by Pascal Lupien.

From the Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section of AALL, this Revised Marketing Toolkit (June 27, 2006), includes content in the following categories: Mission Statement, Competencies for Head Law Librarian, Commonly Asked Questions and Answers, Bibliography, and Statistics Handbook.

Getting The New York Times More Search Engine Friendly, by Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman, June 15, 2006.

"The Competitive Intelligence Foundation's State of the Art: Competitive Intelligence Research Report ($) helps chart the progress of the competitive intelligence (CI) field. This report provides CI practitioners significant information on how competitive intelligence can support their organizational environment – information that can be used by all practitioners to improve their effectiveness."

The LA Times reported (reg. req'd) today that the controvery over the government propaganda campaign is also an issue for 77 news stations throughout the country, who have aired content that is now under investigation by the FCC.

AALL Speakers Directory and AALL Speakers Directory FAQ

Podcasting Legal Guide - Rules for the Revolution (38 pages, PDF), by Colette Vogel and Mia Garlick. Published under a Creative Commons license, with an accompanying wiki.

The Three Factors for a Successful Online Banking Site

"HealthNewsReview.org is a website dedicated to: improving the accuracy of news stories about medical treatments, tests and procedures ; helping consumers evaluate the evidence for and against new ideas in health care. We support and encourage the ABCs of health journalism: Accuracy, Balance, Completeness...HealthNewsReview.org reviews news stories that make a therapeutic claim about: specific treatments, procedures, investigational drugs or devices, vitamins or nutritional suppliments, diagnostic and screening tests."

New York Times, March 18, 2006: Why Do So Few Women Reach the Top of Big Law Firms?

From Marcus P. Zillman, news of his latest Accessibility Resources White Paper Link Compilation.

Business Intelligence: Not Just for Bosses Anymore: "Business intelligence has long been about spitting out data—often irrelevant and outdated—to a few big bosses. But today's BI is both more meaningful and more egalitarian. And it requires ever tighter alignment between IT and the business."

The January 15, 2006 issue of LLRX.com includes the following articles:

I am delighted to announce the addition of three new columns on LLRX.com, authored by leading professionals from different spheres of our community.

Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki: "This is a directory of Fortune 500 companies that have business blogs, defined as: active public blogs by company employees about the company and/or its products." Currently there are 19 listings that include links to the respective blogs.

The Law Page is a new, centralized webpage from which readers may link to a range of information and commentary on law and business related issues that the Journal is aggregating from current content as well as additional sources. This includes news links from Mealey's.com, and a new column, The FLaw, on law firm management (note: most of this content is available by subscription only, but there are also links to WSJ free features). The cornerstone of the content is the new Law Blog.

In 2005, there was alot written about RSS, from the standpoint of marketing, enterprise-wide communications, current awareness monitoring, and as an app that perhaps could significantly diminish the use of email. Interesting, therefore, to note this article, It's time to bury RSS. Will 2006 be the year of aggregated feeds?

The Blogosphere Beckons: Should Your Company Jump In? Harvard Management Communication Letter, Vol. 2, No. 4, November 2005.

'NLJ 250' Shows Lawyer Ranks Growing Again - "Most firms are getting bigger, but it's harder to make equity partner." Lindsay Fortado, The National Law Journal.

Burson-Marsteller press release: "The results of the fifth annual 2005 PRWeek/Burson-Marsteller CEO Survey reveal that while blogs are increasingly making headlines, only seven percent of CEOs are actually blogging and many are skeptical about starting a blog themselves. Despite the low numbers, 59 percent of CEOs said blogs are useful for internal communications, and 47 percent said blogs are effective for external audiences."

IBM press release: "IBM today introduced a new software solution that enables businesses to make sense of the explosion of information from emerging social networks on the Web to deliver new insight into brand reputation and customer, competitor and public opinion about their company. The proliferation of blogs, news feeds, consumer review sites, newsgroups and articles published daily on the Web has created a phenomenon where public opinion about an organization spreads worldwide, faster than ever before. These sources are filled with insight from consumers, experts and competitors that can be analyzed and used by businesses to make better decisions on products, services and business strategies. This creates a tremendous opportunity for organizations to carefully monitor their image and more quickly address business opportunities, threats, quality concerns or changing public perception."

'Blawg' use in law firms is on the rise

The newest additions to the Google product blogs, now numbering ten, are:

Forbes targets what is calls "attack bloggers" with a very broad brush, in a trio of articles as follows:

Wall Street Journal free feature - Jobs Blog: Sites That Post
Openings for Katrina Evacuees, include job opportunites in specific states and localities, in the food and hospitality sectors, and in real estate.

How to let customers know there's been a breach of their data and help them keep their faith in you, by Dr. Larry Ponemon.

From Inc.com, The Top 10 Things You Should Know Before You Blog offers practical and sound tips to assist small businesses in the effective and successful creation and maintenance of blogs to communicate with consumers.

Law Library Marketing Resources, by Cindy Carlson.

What is RSS and Why Should I Care?, presented by Marianne Lenox, Staff Training and Development Coordinator, Huntsville Madison County Public Library, July 2005. [Peter Scott]

Justia Offers Free Migration Solution for FindLaw's Law Firm Web Site Clients

Delivering Actionable Information To Front-Line Lawyers, by John Alber

WSJ Free Content today, Marketers Scan Blogs For Brand Insights

Recent suggested reading on enterprise blogs, and corporate blogs for public consumption:

Two postings, via Hot Links, that offer useful comments on best practices for PowerPoint presentations, as well as how and when to dispense with them in favor of simply talking directly to your audience:

"Google Sitemaps is an experiment in web crawling. Using Sitemaps to inform and direct our crawlers, we hope to expand our coverage of the web and improve the time to inclusion in our index. By placing a Sitemap-formatted file on your webserver, you enable our crawlers to find out what pages are present and which have recently changed, and to crawl your site accordingly." [Link]

Law Library Blogs and Blogs by Law Librarians or Law Library Associations - Compiled by Bonnie Shucha - Updated 6/2/05.

From Wall Street Journal free features, Blogging Becomes A Corporate Job provides a general overview of how several companies, including Microsoft and Stonefield Stonyfield Farm Inc., are diversifying their marketing and corporate communications with the addition of talented bloggers to their workforce.

Advertising Panel Lays Down Rules for Law Firm Ads on Web, by Charles Toutant, New Jersey Law Journal.

Computerworld reports on how a North Carolina hospital system has launched blogs authored by patients that communicate their experiences with specific medical procedures and treatment regimes.

The Wise Use of 'Intelligence', Leigh Jones, The National Law Journal, 04-12-2005.

"This page features links to World Wide Web sites, PowerPoint slideshows, and other electronic resources used in support of presentations at Computers in Libraries 2005. Links are provided at the discretion of presenters. Additional links will be provided as they become available."

Press release: "A newly published white paper on blogs from Edelman, the world's largest independent public relations firm, and Intelliseek, a marketing intelligence firm and provider of one of the Internet's leading blog portals, explores the importance of the blogging phenomenon for public relations and marketers and provides a first-of-its-kind directory of influential bloggers, segmented by industry."

Look Who's Blogging - How five executives got blog religion and are using it to their professional and personal advantage.

From NeOn, An open conversation with Michael Wiley, Director New Media, GM Communications about: "GM FastLane Blog, GM's experiments with podcasting and GM's plans for further developments with communication channels like blogs, podcasting and RSS."

Press release: U.S. Corporations Misuse or Underuse Competitive Intelligence, Outward Insights Survey Shows: "A majority of U.S. based companies that claim to use competitive intelligence (CI) to guide their decision-making processes either don't use intelligence enough or use it the wrong way. This excludes nearly 30% of companies that don't even have, or don't feel the need for, a CI system, despite today's ultra-competitive environment." [thanks Claudia]

Corrupt Techniques in Evidence Presentations: New Chapter from Beautiful Evidence. Below is an excerpt from the forthcoming book by Edward Tufte.

Delivering the News with Blogs: The Georgia State University Library Experience (31 pages, PDF)

Fortune.com has an extensive article on the slippery slope effect of relying on the "viral" linking aspect of blogs to promote products, as well as highlighting recent examples of the enormous impact of bloggers' responses to instances of what they perceive as corporate misdeeds and the marketing of faulty products.

Tim Stanley, the co-founder of FindLaw and its former CTO after the site's purchase by Thomson West, has launched the beta version of an incredible new service to the legal community, Justia: Law Firm Web Site Design. With a range of features and price points (from free to a choice of very competitve pricing options) not currently available in the market, Tim and his expert team have set a new standard of website design in combination with search engine optimization targeted to serve the entire community, from solos to large firms.

"Build a FREE Law Firm Web site In a Few Easy Steps! All Web sites include:
Template Web Design, Search engine optimized pages, Firm Home Page, Firm Profile Page, Firm Location Page, Practice Area Profiles, Attorney Profiles, Web Resources Page, Legal Articles Section W3C Web standards design & layout U.S. 508 and W3C's Web Accessibility Guidelines."

Global Concerns: An In-Depth Examination of Travel Web Sites Selling International Airline Tickets

In his September 27 posting on the Yahoo! Search Blog, Scott Gatz from the My Yahoo! Team details the new RSS features incorporated in the redesigned My Yahoo! beta release.

The ABCs of Intranet Learning

Blogs: The Marketing Killer. This article reviews how major corporates are leveraging blogs and RSS feeds for marketing, collaboration and current awareness monitoring.

The President and COO of Sun Microsystems, Jonathon Schwartz, launched a blog on June 28. Other Sun bloggers comment on his effort: What's missing from Sun blogs (or, is Executive Blogging enough)? and Sun has gone Cluetrain.

Company Plugs RSS as Alternate to E-Mail Marketing

In the July 2004 issue of the ABA Journal (pages 34-35, text not currently available free online), see the article, The New Librarian, focusing on the topic of hourly rates for billable time, which according to a recent informal survey on the Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section Listserv, range from $80 to $200 for "in-depth research."

The 2004 Online Customer Respect Study of the Top 100 U. S. Companies ($$) evaluates "corporate performance from an online customer's perspective," according to the aggregate ratings for the following criteria: ease of navigation, quick and thorough responses to inquiries, respecting customer privacy, open and honest policies, values and respecting customer data. The top five companies are: Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Bank of America, and Medco Health Solutions.

From the LA Times (reg. req'd), PeopleSoft Lawyer's Weblog Is Fresh Twist in Spin Wars.

New on LLRX.com for June 21, 2004:

PR bloggers push forth the medium

The June 2004 issue of The American Lawyer includes an AmLaw Tech Library Survey: Books, Bytes and Budgets. Subtitled, "Caught between paper and PCs, librarians struggle to speed services and corral costs."

From Micah U. Buchdahl, Internet Marketing Attorney (IMA), the following links:

Via Law.com, news that Hildebrandt International announced a joint venture to provide outsourced "professional support services" to American law firms.

2004 TechnoLawyer @ Awards: The Legal Profession's Version of the Oscars.

10 Rules for Corporate Blogs and Wikis, by Nick Wreden. This article offers concise insights that can easily be implemented in leveraging blogs for marketing. In addition, there is a link to an excellent presentation (pdf, 52 pages), Making sense of weblogs in the intranet, which provides numerous screen shots of KM applications at Lucent.

Online Presence: Considering Blogs Instead of Web Sites

From The Legal Intelligencer, Going the Way of the Market:

Newer Versions of Firm Web Sites Boldly Go Where Few Lawyers Have Gone Before.

The Third Annual Report on The Home Pages of the UK's Top 100 Companies' Corporate Web Sites ($$) [Link]:

The National Law Journal's 26th annual survey of the nation's largest law firms, covering the period Oct. 1, 2002, to Sept. 30, 2003.

From BusinessWeek.com: The Web Smart 50: Areas evaluated include collaboration, customer service, customization, streamlining, management and cutting edge applications.

From Denise Howell's blog, What Has Your Blawg Done For You, Your Clients, Your Profession, Lately? Issues addressed include:

Why and How to Use Blogs to Promote Your Library's Services, by Darlene Fichter:

New on LLRX.com this week:

From Law.com:

The following new articles were published this week on LLRX.com:

From the American Lawyer today, the 2003 Associates Survey.

Law Office Computing magazine announced the winners of the competition for the best websites, large and small firms. Thanks to Amy Campbell, I Want My BlogTV, for posting the information, which is as follows:

Vault Survey of Top 100 Law Firms, compiled from surveys returned by 11,908 associates from more than 100 top firms. See also the survey Rankings Methodology. "An extended PDF excerpt and table of contents" is available for download here.

The American Lawyer has published a new survey, the A-List, which ranks the top 200 law firms according to the following methodology: revenue, pro bono, associate satisfaction, and diversity of the lawyers.

The winners of the FindLaw Web Site Awards for 2003 were announced August 14. In the large firm category, the winner is Allens Arthur Robinson; in the mid-size firm category, Swaab Attorneys is the winner; and Immigration Solutions is the winner in the small firm category.

From the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center:

The Corporate Blog Is Catching On: "Alan M. Meckler, the head of Jupitermedia, keeps a Weblog, an online journal of his thoughts. He says he didn't notify the company's lawyers."

Intro to Weblogs for Law Firm Marketing - This important new web publishing tool can help legal services marketers reach niche audiences: by Amy Campbell, whose review includes mentions of SCOTUSBlog, HIPAA Blog, and this blog, about which she states:

In response to the SEC's June 4 indictment on securities fraud, Martha Stewart purchased full-page ads in today's major newspapers declaring her innocence, and launched a new website, which currently includes a letter/appeal from her, and a statement from her attorneys. Apparently, more information about what promises to be a high-profile case will be added to site in the future. Update on Martha's page: According to the June 6 USA Today, Martha's website "received 1.7 million hits in the first 17 hours." On June 10, the following information was added to the site: Setting the Record Straight.
See also:

Andrew Zangrilli's new article in Modern Practice predicts the following trends for 2003 in law firm technology development: "1) more features and functionality added to existing technology; 2) unifying and consolidating disparate systems; and 3) more legal self-service applications."

Firms Take Hard Line on Law Directories spotlights the growing competition among global legal publishers for a share of the lucrative legal directory marketplace, as well as highlights other online marketing and branding strategies available to high-profile firms.

From the ABA's Market Research Department, news that the 2003 ABA National Lawyer Population Survey is available here. In addition to this data, the site provides access to other ABA research and statistics about the profession (demographics, women in law, salaries, quality of life, law firm rankings, corporate counsel, etc.) as well as links to related information from other professional associations, legal publishers and consultants.

Business lawyer Bruce MacEwen's article, Planning a Web Site With Some Punch, reviews the best practices that now comprise standard content areas on most law firm websites.

Lawyers Use Metatags to Help Their Web Sites Pop Up on Internet Searches.

American Lawyer Media, Inc. (ALM) announced the launch, in April, of a new quarterly magazine, Law Firm Inc.(TM), "designed to provide law firms with information and practical advice on a wide variety of business, operations and management issues."

There has been an increased focus on e-lawyering lately, although the provision of free and fee-based services online has been underway for years. Two recent resources from the ABA on how lawyers are using email and the Web to market and deliver services to clients are: Some Call It eLawyering: Is It a Brave New World or an Ethical Quagmire? and the eLawyering Site, a web-based discussion group.

Micah U. Buchdahl of HTMLawyers, Inc. has published his IMA (Internet Marketing Attorney) web site reviews and awards. Well worth a read, Micah has spent considerable time evaluating the sites of the 250 largest law firms in the United States, and ranking them according to his determination of their merits in the following categories: design, content, usability, interactivity, intangibles. He uses an easy to read chart format, with a rating system (1-10, with 10 being the best) that results in a total score listed at the far right hand side of each entry.

American Lawyer Media, Inc. launched a new service, Legal Market Information Source, providing "clients, law firms and companies marketing to the legal industry with trend data, reports, rankings and custom research on major U.S. and global law firms...Initial LMIS product offerings will cover four areas: law firm reports; legal industry briefs; industry ranking tables and custom research reports."

The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against the Educational Research Center of America, Inc. stating the company had "collected personal information from high school and middle and junior high school students through surveys," and used this data "to create lists of students that it sells to commercial entities for use in marketing." A copy of the settlement agreement reached in this matter is here, and a newly released FTC consumer alert for teachers and school administrators, titled "Student Surveys - Ask Yourself Some Questions," is available here.

The big-six music retailers, organized under the name Echo, have launched a new consortium to license and distribute digital music services.

A series of three articles on leveraging web sites and related applications such as e-mail newsletters for law firm marketing is available via law.com: Web Sites Can Net Attorneys More Clients, Firm Sites Must Click, and More Marketing Tools: It Ain't Just the Web Site.