Here is the list.

Can I make just “one” suggestion?  If you don’t know who sent the email, assume its not worth reading.

David Wolf  asked to follow me on Twitter.  I went to his Twitter profile and was immediately impressed by a couple things: he had develop a clear, consistent practice niche that gives him credibility by focusing on child injury law and he keeps his followers current as to changes in that area of laws.

Next, when I agreed to follow him, he sent me a direct message which included a Facebook fan page with his recent updates on child injury law.  Unlike too many attorneys, his headlines are short, succinct and engaging.   He offers value to his readers not self promotion but because what he offers is valuable, he ends promoting his practice in the best possible ways by building trust, credibility and focus.

Been awhile since I’ve found a good freebie:

OPEN Book: A Practical Guide to Social Media

Privacy groups including the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed a complaint with the FTC over Facebooks’ new privacy rules that make more “publicly available information” viewable without the user being able to control it.  They also point out the issue of making so much of a user’s information public to Facebook developers.

Here is the complaint.

This is according to to the report from two professional groups, the Health Care Compliance Association and the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics.

More and more articles are coming about social networking policies for employees.  None of them focus on empowering employees by training them in the risks and benefits of social networking.  If employees think of their engagement in social networking as a chance to show themselves off in a good light to further their employment opportunities, this would greatly help the cause of employers’ success in making sure employees keep within the confines of good social networking policies.

Employees can do more damage more quickly with social networking than with email or other communication policies so getting them on board is critical.

Facebook is suing these individuals in Northern District Court of California for allegedly phishing into Facebook accounts and sending spam.  Facebook claims these four are responsible for 75% of all spam on the site.

This is the recommendation of one SEO company specializing in lawyer marketing.  They recommend attorneys include their Twitter accounts on all their print materials including business cards and the like as a way to increase the number of followers on Twitter.

Here are some of the reasons not to do it.

*Looks gimmicky, like you are trying new things for the sake of it.

*Twitter isn’t a utility, it’s a business and as one that’s profitability is questionable.  What if it crashes and burns three months after you plaster your Twitter account all over your collateral?

*How does listing your Twitter account on all your collateral assist in your overall marketing strategy?  If one of your goals is to gain visibility and creditability as an expert on a particular subject area, then it would make more sense to list a blog title that references your expertise.  Unless you’ve created a Twitter account to reflect your expertise, “CAUCCLawyer” then your Twitter account won’t advance your cause.  You also won’t advance your cause if you use to Twitter to vent about traffic snarls and your favorites hockey team. 

*Beware of SEO tactics like these that don’t take into account your overall marketing strategies.  You might be driving people to your site but if they don’t get a positive impression of your practice when they get there, you might be doing more harm than good.

Daniel Schwartz at Connecticut Law blog lists several social networking policy examples he provided at a recent seminar.  I’m still looking for a policy that includes a employee training component.

It appears that banks are utilizing the “publicly available information” from social networking websites such as Facebook when verifying whether a credit card customer is “real.”  According to this article from Computerworld, a security expert, Roger Thompson, had to answer questions about his daughter-in-law to verify that he was the real Roger Thompson whose credit card was stolen.   When he asked the anti-fraud person where he got this information, he was told it was all “publicly available information.”

That is the information the Facebook allows anyone to see and its also the security hole in their privacy settings as a third-party application is treated as a friend and subject to those securities settings which allows a window into a person’s online profile that they could well imagine they had locked down.

Last week I gave a talk to recent law graduates who were contemplating solo practice.  Not so much because they were excited about going out on their own but  because Big Law and even Not So Big Law isn’t hiring so much.

More evidence of that comes from Elizabeth Wurtzel’s piece in the Wall Street Journal about Cravath’s deferral offer to new first years  by providing them an $80,000 incentive not to work.  According to Ms. Wurtzel, many of these first years declined the offer.  She surmises that they did so because they were concerned about the stability of Cravath.  Maybe and maybe not.

The point is that there has been a sea-change in the legal industry and what the new paradigm will be is anyone’s guess.