On Edwin Jacobs’ Law & Justice blog, there’s a post called: “Hamburg Court: Online Publisher is Liable for Reader Comments. Also for Comments on Blogs? “

From the post:

The first-instance district court of Hamburg has issued a temporary restraining order preventing an on line publisher Heise Zeitschriften Verlag from publishing reader comments on a forum. Those comments called on others to overload a third party’s server by massively downloading a programme. In the future Heise will have to review all comments and discussion forums.

Edwin believes “This judgment could potentially indeed set a precedent not only for forums, but also for blogs.”

Popularity: 3% [?]

Do you have your own photo on your blog?

For a long time, I hated the idea of having a photo on an individual’s site. To me, it seemed kind of cheesy, and used car salesman-like.

But I think I’ve changed my mind. On sites that are published by one person, seeing a small picture tends to make the experience feel more human and personal.

So I’ve decided to put a small, cartoon-like image on the sidebar of this site.

Do you have your own photo on your blog?

Popularity: 7% [?]

I do.

I’ve been part of a Beta test of Squidoo, which is kind of like a blog conglomeration. Their “About Squidoo” page says:

We have built an online platform that makes it easy for anyone to build lenses on topics they are passionate about. These lenses help you find a unique, human perspective on things that interest you… fast. Not only can Lensmasters spread their ideas, get recognized for their expertise, and send more traffic to their Web sites and blogs-they could also earn royalties.

Squidoo is the brainchild of marketing guru Seth Godin. It makes it easy to aggregate content from RSS feeds to offer to the rest of the world. I’ve created a “lens” for law firm blogging, and it is available at:

http://www.squidoo.com/lawfirmblog/

Squidoo is still in beta, but today moved into public beta. So, if you’re interested, go sign up and start building your own lenses! I think this is a no-brainer: a fairly high profile new venue to promote your expertise……it’s free, and you can actually make money from it!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Maybe it’s not really a newsflash to you, but I’m relatively surprised. Law firms are using flash much more than I had anticipated.

Admittedly I have a love/hate relationship with Flash. I love it when it’s used in a useful way, but I don’t see that very often. In fact, I can’t think of an example offhand. Flash rarely enhances functionality, and I think that’s my problem with it.

In many ways, Flash is used for no other reason but eye candy. And believe me, I understand: there’s nothing wrong with that. But it seems like the tradeoff may not be worth it:

• Flash and search engines: This is an issue that, for the most part, has been resolved. Way back when, search engines could not index content embedded in flash content. Now, however, search engines can…..as long as the designer has implemented a software package on the server side. Again, not that big a problem, but still something to think about.
• Flash takes a while to load: Now that we’re living in a broadband world, download and load time is less of an issue…but it still matters. I can’t tell you how annoyed I am when I see “Loading…….” when I’m trying to see the content of a web page. This is especially soul-numbing when the object that is “Loading…..” is nothing more than a logo.
• Flash for the sake of flash: I do not like sites that use flash solely because it is available. One site on the AMLaw 200 list uses flash for no obvious reason….and they also play an endless loop of sound effects! This is a law firm’s site, but it feels more like Nickelodeon to me.

With that said, I decided to take a look at my sample set of 150 firms on the AMLaw 200 to see if they use Flash on their home page.

59% (88) of the firms did not use flash.
41% (62) of the firms did.

This is a much higher number than I had anticipated.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Out of curiousity this weekend, I decided to go through my sample set of the AMLaw 200 to see how these firms rank in Google. Just like last time, I used a set of 150 firm sites.

About Page Rank:
I’m sure many of you are already familiar with the concept of PageRank, Google’s way of judging the “importance” of a web site. As I’ve posted before, Google defines PageRank as:

PageRank Technology: PageRank performs an objective measurement of the importance of web pages by solving an equation of more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Instead of counting direct links, PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page A. PageRank then assesses a page’s importance by the number of votes it receives.

Though it’s a complicated algorithm, the main idea is simple: If lots of sites link to you, you’re important to Google, and the more important you are to Google, the higher your site will appear in search engine rankings.

Methodology:
To find a page’s rank, you need only download and install a browser plugin from Google. The Google Toolbar includes a page rank icon that gives the rank of whichever page you’re currently on.

I went to each of the sites and recorded their home page’s PageRank.

Results:

5.33% (8) of the sites had a PageRank of zero

.66% (1) of the sites had a PageRank of three

4.66% (7) of the sites had a PageRank of four

33.33% (50) of the sites had a PageRank of five

44.66% (67) of the sites had a PageRank of six

9.33% (14) of the sites had a PageRank of seven

2% (3) of the sites had a PageRank of eight

Since there are currently only 212 sites with a PageRank of nine, the three sites with a rank of 8 are doing a fantastic job.

Conclusions:
I was fairly surprised that law firm sites are doing as well as they are. With 78% having a PageRank of 5 or above, law firm sites are doing a good job. On the other hand, it is hard to believe that a firm in the Top 200 would have a zero rank. The only explanation I have is that the firms could have changed the name of their home page (for instance, http://www.lawfirmblogging.com/ vs. http://www.lawfirmblogging.com/newhome/index2.php), and Google has yet to take notice.

Popularity: 7% [?]

I’ve been thinking alot about logos recently.

More specifically, I’ve been thinking about whether a law firm’s logo is instantly recognizable. If you think about the most recognizable logos in general, it is not necessary to see the actual text to know what company is advertising. For example:

But do law firm logos accomplish the same?

I’ve gone through my list of the AM Law 200, and randomly selected 10 firms, and recreated their logo…..only this time, there’s no text other than sample text in the same font. How many firms can you recognize (if any)?

1.

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