While I was perusing the twitterstream yesterday, @ProfJonathon shared a link to a new web service named CMP.ly. According to the website, it purports to be a “disclosure engine” for everyone online — from bloggers to Agencies.
My first question to ProfJonathon was whether it was recognized by the FTC. Since he was merely sharing a link and was in no way associated with the service, we agreed that it was an interesting intellectual exercise and we each went our separate ways. Then, I got a response from @cmply:

@ProfJonathan @mglickman — Good question. Although the FTC cannot endorse a particular solution we met and reviewed our system. DM for info.

Naturally, I DM’d (DMed?) the @cmply account, offering my email address. The response I received, not 2 hours later, was informative and comprehensive from Tom Chernaik, the principal of CMP.ly’s parent — DigComm. Tom described how DigComm involved the FTC in the design of the CMP.ly service, so that — when implemented properly — it meets and exceeds the FTC’s new guidelines. He also invited further questions and discussion.

I have nothing to do with DigComm or CMP.ly. I don’t even consider myself enough of a blogger to make use of a disclosure engine such as CMP.ly. If I were looking for an answer to disclosure requirements, however, the responsiveness and openness of those in charge of CMP.ly would definitely put my mind at ease.

I had an idea the other day for a service twitter should offer to corporate/registered accounts.
One thing people have noticed is that twitter seems to have very high search engine ranking; so that if I were to Google my name, one of the top links is my twitter page. That has raised some concerns in the past about how a lawyer can be viewed by potential clients who look the lawyer up online.
My idea is to allow firms to leverage this strong search engine ranking of twitter. A firm can have its own twitter ID, but, as any social media guru will tell you, it’s better to have an individual face people can relate to. So a firm will appoint an individual to be the face of the firm on twitter (and whatever other social network it deems necessary). That’s pretty darn straightforward.

The twist came when I started thinking about personal brands in the context of the firm’s larger brand. What if a firm hires someone with a strong and respected personal brand, such as a lateral hire or — I’ll be completely honestly self-centered — a recent law school graduate who built relationships with other legal professionals using social media.
What if twitter would allow a registered account to link or associate an existing individual account to the firm’s account, thereby allowing a search of the firm’s name to also turn up the individual’s twitter account?
The registered account holder would start the process off requesting an account to be associated with it. Then twitter would have to act as the gatekeeper, requiring proof from the requester that there is a valid rationale to associate the individual account with the registered account. Something like proof of employment should do. Then the registered account holder can determine when it it time to disassociate the individual from the registered account.
Revolutionary? No. but I think it could be very useful.

Dear World,

Social Media.
Social.
Media.
Why do these two words confuse the hell out of so many people? I don’t just mean confuse in the whimsical way your parents might be confused about how to open a file in an email. I mean confused — to the point where people end up doing things completely bass-ackwards and screwing themselves over.

Yesterday, Scott Greenfield and Brian Tannebaum posted excellent, somewhat related and extraordinarily relevant statements regarding the need for lawyers to subscribe to and follow an ethical guideline. The overlap between them lies in a lawyer’s online presence, and since I am so obviously steeped in online reality that I instantly associated those verbs as online colloquialisms (“subscribe” to a feed and “follow” on twitter) I will focus mainly on the online aspect of the issue.

Which brings me back to Social Media. How complicated can it be? Why are there Social Media Gurus for hire, who obviously are certified via Social Media Certificate programs? How on Earth can something that is based on the most natural activity in the world — talking to someone — become so overwhelming that people feel the need to pay for people to do it for them? Networking existed for centuries, long before Social Media came around. Is it the “Media” that’s throwing people off? Do people feel like they need to follow someone else’s instructions or outsource their online presence because they don’t feel comfortable dealing with media?
Because it’s not media. It’s online networking. It’s like walking into a room full of people, except it’s online. There is nothing mystical or confusing or difficult about this concept.
People didn’t have a problem understanding chat rooms; but as soon as it has a Title people drop everything they might have known about social interaction online.

My personal opinion is that Social Media is a straw man. Yes, it is missing a brain; but more importantly, it diverts the attention from the real issue — the issue that Brian Tannebaum focused on in his post.

All too many people, not just lawyers, don’t worry about the ethical considerations of their actions. Social media is just new enough that it’s an environment where these people can slip into what they feel more comfortable doing — trying to game the system.

The sleaziness online won’t last, but it sure is annoying in the meantime.

The most recent Lawyer2Lawyer podcast had guest appearances by @KevinOKeefe and @ScottGreenfield concerning the use of twitter by lawyers.

Kevin had requested questions or concerns people had with twitter, and the first thing that popped into my mind was oversharing. I’m obviously not talking about when you give too many graphic details at the dinner table; rather, when you share information regarding what you are working on.

I recently volunteered to help do research on a case. (As an aside, this is the first bit of practical legal experience I am getting. To give credit where due, I was referred to the attorney through my law school. One of my professors mentioned — in passing — that he knew someone who was looking for help and I approached the professor after class to get the attorney’s contact information.) In my excitement to be working on something real, I twitted the general issue I was researching. Before I hit the “tweet” button, however, I hesitated. How much information does someone really need to piece together the rest of the picture?

That started me thinking about the possible pitfalls of twitter in general — the biggest one being the complacency we fall into when there is a perception of security. Password breaches aside, twitter’s “direct message” feature poses a huge risk for people hoping to direct message sensitive, confidential or private communications. If someone uses the wrong format in sending the message, even if it’s only a single character discrepancy, the private message is posted for the entire globe to read.

I hardly ever use the SMS functionality to update my twitter status, yet I still allow SMS notification of direct messages. When I tried to respond to someone with my email address I completely failed to preface my message with a “d”, thereby publishing my personal email address for all to see. Fortunately I’m a nobody, so I’m safe and unhassled.

Privacy Disaster At Twitter: Direct Messages Exposed (Update: GroupTweet Is Likely Culprit)

dm fail!

There are a myriad of articles on how to use twitter (some days it seems that’s all anyone ever writes about. And it’s not as if each article is chock-full of original information…) and many of them suggest that you use the direct message function rather than @replies so as not to overburden the poor people who voluntarily asked to be shown your every last fleeting thought. This theory works hand-in-hand with the theory that twitter is a useful way to communicate with coworkers, as a sort of mass IM mechanism. I think that it’s safe to assume that your communications with your coworkers will include privileged information. Try to remember that unless you very, very carefully direct message someone, the information is knowable to anyone with an internet connection. Or people sitting next to someone with an internet connection.

I don’t mean to harp on twitter — the issue is the same with all social media:
Apple staffer’s online leak points to new iPhone processor | Betanews
I simply feel that the nature of twitter more easily lends itself to be misused.

Like most other twitter users, I have been afflicted recently by the slowdown and general wonkiness of twitter. Where is this plague coming from? Who shall we blame? Well, we know who to blame… obviously Israel.

I did notice, however, that my behavior as a result of this twitter brown-out was worrying, to say the least. My trusty TweetDeck was failing me (ok, to be fair, it’s the twitter API that’s failing) so I found myself refreshing the twitter homepage several times a minute. Why?

It would seem that I am addicted to twitter. This is not something I am proud of, but I take solace in the knowledge that many of my fellow twittites share my obsession. The number of tweets referring to how slowly twitter is updating and how it is affecting them assures me of that.

I would go on, but I noticed that the main part of my post is just under 140 words. You understand…