Bar associations should pay attention to comment spam from law-related websites

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In addition to this blog I also have one called PDF for Lawyers. Back in October of 2010 I put up a short post called Do More with Acrobat; it’s not that hard. I have comments enabled, but that’s not a post that many people wanted to comment on. Until a few minutes ago.

I got a notification that some entity wanted to post the following comment:

I am very much interested to have every bit knowledge about Acrobat.But the link you have provided with this post is not working.I was curious to know more things i can do with Acrobat.

There was a link in the referenced PDF for Lawyers post, and it is indeed no longer working. But the commenter wasn’t really as much interested in giving me useful information as he/she/it was in seeding my site with a link back to the online referral mill listed in the image capture below:

The company running it is creating comment spam as a way of boosting their ratings; it’s likely that Google will eventually figure it out and penalize the site in its rankings. Once Google penalizes a site it’s as good as invisible. But meanwhile there’s other folks that should take note.

For example, the Mississippi Bar Asociation should also check into this company. It’d be nice to find out which lawyers are using them, and whether those lawyers know that the company is engaging in shameful behavior. If they don’t know, then why not? Did the lawyers just hire some SEO expert and not ask any questions? Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean the lawyers should not be held accountable.

You can be sure that this is happening in every state in the country. And every state bar association should spend a little time trying to get to the root of this kind of comment spam. Or they should if they care about how the legal profession might be perceived by people who use the Internet.

My book on "blogging for lawyers" is ready for order

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The ABA is ready to begin accepting orders on my book: Blogging in One Hour for Lawyers (click link to order). Here's the gist of the book:

"Until a few years ago, only the largest firms could afford to engage an audience of millions. Now, lawyers in any size firm can reach a global audience at little to no cost--all because of blogs. An effective blog can help you promote your practice, become more "findable" online, and take charge of how you are perceived by clients, journalists and anyone who uses the Internet. Blogging in One Hour for Lawyers will show you how to create, maintain, and improve a legal blog--and gain new business opportunities along the way. In just one hour, you will learn to:

  • Set up a blog quickly and easily
  • Write blog posts that will attract clients
  • Choose from various hosting options like Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress
  • Make your blog friendly to search engines, increasing your ranking
  • Tweak the design of your blog by adding customized banners and colors
  • Easily send notice of your blog posts to Facebook and Twitter
  • Monitor your blog's traffic with Google Analytics and other tools
  • Avoid ethics problems that may result from having a legal blog

I've setup a special blog at OneHrBlog.com  to continue the conversation about how lawyers can learn to blog, or how to improve the blog they already have. Obviously, there are other lawyer-bloggers out there with great advice to offer on this topic so I'd love to hear from those folks. There's a twitter feed too. If you are interested in reviewing the book, shoot me an email and I'll get you a copy.

And this Friday I'll be on the This Week in Law podcast with Denise Howell and Rick Klau, two of the really early law bloggers. We'll be talking about the power of blogs, and other law-related topics, along with Evan Brown of the blog Internet Cases. So tune in at 1 pm Central Time to catch a rare reunion of some "old lawyer bloggers."*

* "old" measured in Internet Time of course, not in "human body aging time."

Reflections & thoughts on my 10 year blogiversary

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It's been 10 years since I started blogging. And for much of it I didn't really know what the theme was. I was just trying to figure out what I thought about things, mostly things having to do with how technology was disrupting society (and the legal profession, of course).

I'm fascinated by how people react to change.

As we get older we cling to familiar ways, and resist new ones. We all have this tendency, me included. But, over the years, as I paid more attention to "how things tend to work," I realized that resisting change is not a helpful strategy.

Change is ubiquitous and inevitable.

Everything in the Universe is constantly changing. Interestingly, the stuff we humans have created (e.g. computers, mobile phones, the Internet, GPS etc.) is making the pace of change go much faster. The Darwinian mantra for most species on Earth has been "Adapt or die." The new mantra for the tech-laden world that we've created is: "Adapt quickly, or become disoriented and irrelevant."

I don't like being disoriented, so I try to keep up with technology-driven change.

I've been thinking about what the theme of this blog should be from now on. It shouldn't be just about technology, or just about change. I want to talk about fundamental insights, and how we acquire them. Are there some really key insights? If so, what are they? These are the most useful questions to ask, it seems to me.

We have limited lifespans, and we can't control much of our world (certainly not the way we hope to, or pretend to). But there are some things we can control pretty well, and we should focus on those things so we can create better lives.

The passage in this ancient text says it best:

As irrigators guide water to their fields,
as archers aim arrows,
as carpenters carve wood,
the wise shape their lives.

So the core question is this: what kinds of things can we control to shape our lives better?

Social media strategies for professionals

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In the world of “social media pundits” snake oil salesmen abound. I accidentally wandered into the world of social media back in 2002 when I started this weblog. Back then the phrase “social media” didn't exist. But once sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and you-name-it cropped up we needed a phrase to lump all of those things into. Hence, “social media.”

And hence the appearance of people professing to have expertise this hip new thing.

I don't consider myself a “social media expert” since I've never sat down and tried to map out what it all means in some larger context. But I've used almost all of the popular social media tools, so I have a sense of who knows what they're talking about and who doesn't.

Michelle Golden is one of those sensible people who I would recommend to any professional (e.g. lawyer, doctor, businessperson) who wants to understand how social media affects their business, and how to take advantage of social media tools. And, fortunately for those professionals, Michelle has written a comprehensive book about this: Social Media Strategies for Professionals and their Firms.

The book explains pretty much everything, including:

  • The advantages of an effective online presence
  • The differences (beneficial and detrimental) between social media and traditional marketing
  • How to mitigate risk and gain benefit from social media use
  • Comparisons of popular social media tools
  • Understanding the audience, and capitalizing on that understanding
  • Integrating old and new marketing tactics
  • Internet monitoring that takes only 10 minutes a day
  • Assessing what attracts an audience
  • Determining how to build an effective audience

Michelle also includes many case studies that delve into how various bloggers and twitterers have achieved success online. On page 141-43 she profiled me, which is the only blemish in this otherwise fine, practical work.

As I keep saying, Michelle walks the walk (see her twitter page: http://www.twitter.com/michellegolden). And if you pick up her book, you'll see that she knows how to talk about social media in a way that's actually helpful. Even if you don't buy the book, you should at least follow Michelle on Twitter.

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Be aware, be very aware

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Reputation is important to most folks, and yet many don't seem to know how to manage their reputation. The first step, of course, is to become more aware of what people are saying about you.  But what does this mean, exactly? How can you become more aware?  

In the past few years this thing called The Internet has really gotten a lot of traction.  For some reason people are flocking to it, using it to share information quickly and across large groups.  Every day, it seems, the geeks who run The Internet add some new 'social networking' tool to make it easier for them to share a buzz. 

The iPhone has done much to expand the reach and power of The Internet.  When the iPhone 3G came out (with GPS), geeks were raving about something called 'location aware services.'  They wanted to be able to tap a button on their iPhone to find cool places around them. Places like restaurants, for example.

Screenshot iPhone
One of the hottest iPhone apps is this thing called 'UrbanSpoon,' which is a restaurant finder.  It works sort of like a slot machine; you 'pull the lever' and it will spin its wheels and then pick a nearby restaurant at random.  Of course, you can also just ask it to show you all the nearby restaurants. UrbanSpoon is a very popular iPhone application!

At first, UrbanSpoon didn't have a rating system, or any way for users to add their feedback on how well they liked the restaurant.  Now, they do.  In fact, iPhone users can now add pictures of the restaurant, and even take pictures of the menu. And they can use Twitter to post a 'tweet' about the restaurant (while simultaneously posting that tweet as a review on UrbanSpoon).

To use these review features you have to sign up on UrbanSpoon's webpage and create a user account. Once you do you'll be able to post reviews.  But you'll also get weekly email that tells you which restaurants in your home town are hot and which are not.  

Look at an excerpt from the UrbanSpoon email I got this morning (which is about New Orleans restaurants):

Picture 1

I wonder if the folks at Lilette and Rio Mar are aware of UrbanSpoon's review?  In my humble opinion, both of those restaurants are wonderful and don't deserve a bad review.  No doubt, if the owners were aware of this situation then they could do something to alter their standing in the UrbanSpoon ranking.

So this gets me back to my main point: awareness.  Are you aware of what is being said about your business on the Internet?  Maybe you need to increase your awareness.  Maybe you need to learn more about this strange land inhabited by geeks (but increasingly by non-geeks too).  

One thing that is really important to understand about the Internet (besides that it's not really a series of tubes) is that its growing popularity is not a fad.  It's a trend, and a very powerful one at that.

Trends are a good thing to be aware of too.
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