But with the growing use of Twitter by those active in social networking and social media, monitoring the blogosphere alone is not enough. You need to monitor what people are 'micro-blogging' at Twitter. A lot can be said about you - good and bad - in 140 characters of text broadcast to hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of a person's followers on Twitter.

I subscribe to an RSS feed of keywords and key phrases mentioned on Twitter via Summize.

Summize is a search engine for Twitter that, like Google Blog Search for blogs, allows you to subscribe to searches. You don't browse searches ala a standard Google Search, you subscribe to an RSS feed of your search so as to read updates in your RSS newsreader.

Take a look at how I followed feedback on Twitter to LexBlog's launch of LexMonitor last Friday. This represents the most recent 'tweets' from today (Sunday). I noted how recent those 'tweets' were with arrows on the left.

As you'll see, it's a 3 step process. 1) Key in the word or phrase you want to follow; 2) Click search; and 3) Click the RSS feed button to add the ongoing search results to your RSS newsreader.

Two other tools people use to monitor Twitter conversation are Quotably (powered by Summize displaying threads of 'tweets') and Tweetscan.

For explaining social media to to your law firm, try Social Media in Plain English from their Common Craft Show.

You may wish to check out the Common Craft Store, a resource for influencers and educators to purchase and download licensed, higher resolution and improved versions of Common Craft's videos for use in the workplace.

The theory being that so called 'experts' go to social media websites, create a persona, and then tell everyone they need to be on them so the expert gets a following. The person concluded that no one they knew was using social media to make any money.

May sound crass to say I make money from using social media, but I do. Social media is a means whereby my blog content and other things I may say are amplified to more people and I connect with my target audience of bloggers, reporters, conference coordinators, clients, and prospective clients.

I regularly see referral traffic to my blog from social media/social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Delicious, Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbleupon. And the traffic is not coming from a profile of mine at those places with a link to my blog. The traffic is coming to my blog from posts displayed by syndication, a mention of a post of mine on Twitter, or someone sharing one of my posts on a social networking site.

A significant number of people in this country no longer get their news and information from mainstream media. They get their news and info from trusted 'friends' who blog about something they see or share a link and description to something they've read. Major publications such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal get huge amounts of traffic because links to their news stories are shared this way.

If major publications can draw traffic, why not well done niche publications written by authorities in their field? Like a lawyer following the niche in which they practice and sharing what they see with accompanying insight and commentary. The key is then leveraging social media to amplify your content's distribution.

You don't make money from social media anymore than you would make money from a cell phone. You make money as a result of effectively using a cell phone.

With regard to social media you make money as a lawyer by further enhancing your reputation as a thought leader and spreading word of your stature. That comes in part from effective blogging and leveraging social media.

The report finds Social media, and blogs in particular, are becoming a more important part of global media consumption for Internet users than some traditional media channels.

Key findings include:

• 78% of Internet users read blogs, up from 66% in the last study
• 57% of Internet users are now members of a social network
• RSS consumption is growing rapidly up from 15% to 39%
• Podcasts are now mainstream digital content, listened to by 48%

It's like I told law firm PR professionals last week in Chicago. Ask your attorneys under age 35 if they they subscribe to the major local newspaper. Ask them if they're considering do so. You're likely to get a question in response. 'Why would I?'

For a growing portion of our population news from social media whether it be from blogs or links to news stories shared by 'friends' on social networking sites is their preferable source of news.

And among some other great law practice management tips, here's Carolyn's advise on marketing.

Get yourself registered or claim your profile at sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Avvo and other networking sites and start educating yourself on blogs and websites so that you can get one up and running when you open for business (as an aside, while you're still clerking, I would refrain from blogging unless you clear it with your judge).  And while you're at it, take yourself over to a Sears or JC Penney and for $60, get a professional looking digital photo that you can start uploading to these sites and use at your website. 

Carolyn's advise to turn down the 50k was of course unique to this lawyer's situation. But I found it telling that Carolyn, who pours her heart out to help lawyers looking to hang out their shingle, advised social networking for bringing in new work.

I've been following recent discussion on a small law firm marketing listserv. One after another, lawyers lined upped to diss social networking as an effective means of marketing a law practice.

Fact is blogging and the adjunct use of social networking sites may just be the most cost effective and most powerful way to market your new law practice. What used to take a decade, that being to establish yourself as an authority in a niche, a young lawyer can do in two or three years by effectively using the Internet.

Becky McCray, an Oklahoma small town entrepreneur with a liquor store and small cattle ranch, believes small town professionals have the most to gain from making new connections via social media. Guest blogging at Chris Brogan's community and social media blog, Becky offers some tips in her 'Social Media Starter Moves for Small Town Small Businesses.'

From Becky, here's 5 ways you can use social media with my accompanying commentary.

• Twitter to make connections. Twitter can be an enormous time sink if you treat it that way. If you treat it as a way to meet people, to expand your horizons, to learn from others, and to feel connected, you can make it a useful tool for your business. Start by adding a handful of people, and let your network grow organically. Check Twitter Packs for more people in your industry or in your state. Share cool discoveries, information, and just connect on a human level. Twitter does not require constant attention, check in a few times a day.
• Blog to position yourself as an expert. Part of what makes a small town special is the sense of community, and that’s what blogging does at its best. Find the blogs already talking about your field, and start reading and commenting. Follow and comment on blogs that reach people in your community even if the blog does not relate to the law. Then start your own blog, telling stories and sharing information helpful to community members.
• Facebook to reach the community. Even in Becky's home town of 5000 people, there is a healthy group of Facebook users. She just got an invitation to join the community summer band, via Facebook. She's also seeing small town people using Facebook as a tool to remain connected even as they spread out around the country. By staying active yourself, you can make and keep connections based on this natural geographic affinity.
• Local community websites. In your town, you might find people online at the local newspaper site, an independent community forum, or even on a local business’s website. The disadvantage? These are usually hotbeds of local politics. Use caution.
• Experiment to learn.Use Flickr to connect with your local photo enthusiasts. Sign up with Utterz to give on-the-spot reports. Use Operator11, Ustream or Blog TV to share meetings, trainings, or build a networking group across distance. Your goal is not to be on every single network out there. Your goal is to try the tools that could work for your business, or even for your clients, and learn them. Drop the ones that don’t help you. And remember that it’s not all about getting business, it’s also about connection, learning and thinking.

I grew up and practiced law for 17 years in a small town in rural Wisconsin. Connections with people was what it was all about. Getting to know people and talking with others was a way of life. We didn't do it because we felt the pressure to market our services, it was the natural and polite thing to do.

With the advent of online social media and social networking, remember at its heart, connecting with people remains the same. Enjoy communicating with people, getting to know them, and sharing your mutual interests.

Online tools such as Twitter and blogs may seem awkward at first. That's okay. But they're just communication tools. With a little use and trial and error, they'll soon feel as natural as saying 'hey' or tipping your hat to others as you pass them on the sidewalk.

From Aaron:

Presence Marketing is the recognition and exposure that a person or company gets simply by being there. Where is there? It is simply anywhere that people are.

In traditional advertising, it might be product placement in your favorite television show. An example of this is how Agent McGee uses the iPhone throughout NCIS. (It is unclear if this is actual Apple marketing or not - but any publicity is good publicity, in this case). Another example was the use of Cisco VoIP phones or Dell computers at CTU in 24.

In the online sense, it is nearly identical, but manifested differently. By being active on blogs, social networks or any other format that places a high dividend on visibility, companys and brands are engaging in Presence Marketing.

Lawyers do online presence marketing through effective blogging and the making use of social media.

Francis Pileggihas made himself a brand name in the area of Delaware corporate litigation through his blog. Not only is Pilleggi seen on his own blog, but his blog is routinely cited by well known practicing lawyers and law professors who write on corporate law issues. Now through syndication and social media, Francis' content is displayed at the Wall Street Journal, in the news at LinkedIn, at Harvard Business School publications, and in Bloomberg news feeds.

Think in-house counsel and exec's selecting local counsel feel more comfortable calling Pileggi when they see him all over the place online?

And you don't need to be a major corporation to do presence marketing. Aarron gives you one example, that being the use of Twitter.

As an individual, you have more ability to be seen and engaged as any major brand anywhere in the world. In fact, due to Twitter, it is demonstrated repeatedly that simply being present and active on Twitter can create more brand recognition and marketing capital for individuals than companies engaging in the same space and not being ‘as present’......In another day, or another age, this would not be possible because traditional marketing skews toward those who have money, time or historical depth.

I agree wholeheartedly with Aaron that little or no effort is required to be present and ‘seen’. 'It is the lowest of the low hanging fruit in the marketing industry.'

I explained LinkedIn is displaying blog posts from influential blogs in the customized news section on the home page of each LinkedIn user. The blog posts are coming via RSS/synidication and being displayed right along with news from the major news services and publications.

Better yet, the blog content displayed is tailored for the LinkedIn user. If you're publishing a law blog on a particular niche, the content is displayed for people in the relevant industry or who have expressed an interest in that niche based on the person's use of LinkedIn.

I'm also finding significant traffic coming to my blog from LinkedIn users. Last week, three of my blog posts were being run on LinkedIn and displayed for people in the legal, marketing, and PR/communications fields.

Note that I did not see my blog posts displayed at LinkedIn. I saw the referral traffic in my blog stats. I then saw my profile being viewed by people in the above fields. I have to believe it was folks in the legal and marketing fields who saw my blog posts displayed in their custom news.

Here's a screen shot of the news section that's displayed on the home page of each LinkedIn user. My company is LexBlog, thus the display of 'LexBlog. Inc. News.' Your news will be displayed under the name of your firm.

You'll see that there's a field in which you can submit a news story. I have not submitted any of my blog posts, they're being displayed at LinkedIn on their own.

If you're going to be submitting a blog post, make sure it's a good one. Abusing the process may actually hamper getting your blog posts syndicated to LinkedIn.

As more and more major sites display blog posts by syndication it's becoming more and more important for law firms to use blog software for the syndication of their content.

Robert Scoble, who presumably picked up word of the Earthquake via Twitter, shared the news with those of us following him on Twitter.

When I couldn't find any news of the earthquake at CNN or Google News, I went to Tweetscan, which allows you to monitor Twitter discussion by keyword. Sure enough, plenty of news on the earthquake. Including from people in China.

And look who's 'Tweeting' news of the earthquake in addition to 'citizen tweeters,' the New York Times and Reuters. Amazing.

Discussion on Twitter now is that the mainstream media may have first picked up word of the earthquake from Twitter before their traditional sources.

What we're seeing in action is a breaking news world wide backbone that can disseminate news faster than anything main stream media can match. All with a crazy tool that asks 'What are you doing now?'

Update on how news breaks:

In order to follow more Twitter feeds, people are also monitoring the word 'earthquake' at summize and quotably.

People at Twitter are now telling people who felt the quake to report it here.

Social networking costs are minimal -- it's not like sponsoring a table at an awards dinner or printing brochures -- so your return on investment is astronomic...

Cornelius' comment was part of a story on Legal OnRamp, started by Cisco Systems Inc. General Counsel Mark Chandler and former Perkins Coie lawyer Paul Lippe. In less than a year, Legal OnRamp has grown to more than 3,000 members from 200 firms and 400 companies.

Allen & Overy, whose partner Kenneth Rivlin unsuccessfully tried kill off associates use of Facebook, saw enough merit in social networking sites to invest in Legal OnRamp. Per Rivlin:

We saw both lawyers and staff using the site to build professional networks. Firm management saw the opportunity for lawyers to exchange resumes, make client contacts and circulate best practices memos about everything from writing a contract to structuring a deal.

With the ability to browse individual lawyer bios, visit message boards, attend Q&A sessions, join groups, and receive Facebook-style updates on other lawyers, Cornelius 'favors Legal OnRamp over other business networking sites like LinkedIn and LawLink because it's interactive and offers access to potential clients through its in-house contacts.'

I recently joined Legal OnRamp, courtesy of an invite from an in-house counsel I met via LinkedIn. I haven't spent enough time on it to personally form an opinion on it's value.

But 3,000 lawyers from 200 law firms, presumably large law, and 400 companies combined with large law firms investing in the social networking site ought to tell you something. Some lawyers are seeing value in social networking.

Business through Facebook? Not directly, but it can happen through relationships you build in Facebook.

I am not a big user of Facebook, but I can see how one could get work through it. Let's say you meet someone with similar interests through a Facebook group. If you're a lawyer, perhaps they're a young in-house lawyer. You start following each other in Facebook - you share recent pictures of recreational activities with your families, you start playing scrabble in Twitter, etc. You are building out a network.

Will you get new business from the person tomorrow? Probably not. But you now know another business person whose company may need your services at some time or know of someone who may. It's a lifetime of building relationships that leads to work.

'Dig Your Well Before You Get Thirsty' is the title of a book Harvey McKay wrote years ago. His point was to build out a business network for professional success.

I'm not telling you to drop everything and jump into Facebook this weekend, just saying to be open to new things. Things that work for some folks and that don't work for others.

If I said lawyers can get work by playing golf at a country club, that doesn't mean you drop everything and start taking golf lessons and join the club for fear you would lose business if you didn't.

Golf courses are very pretty on a beautiful day and the mental challenges and nuances of the sport are attractive. But I suck at golf and don't have the patience. Probably why you'll find me at LinkedIn.

...[I]f a lawyer spends substantial time each day blogging, and updating Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and any other networks to which they belong (Pulse anyone???), what about life outside work? At some point, it seems to me, there isn't enough time in the day to participate regularly on EVERY site, and still maintain a healthy work life balance.

Other lawyers do regularly tell me that these goofy social networking tools you're talking about are great for you, but I'm a practicing lawyer and I simply don't have the time.

And I'm sure it seems that those of us referencing and using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and the like must be spending a lot of time on these mediums. That's not necessarily so.

In one case, you use them for news - so you go there when you have the time for catching up with what's going on just like you would browse a local newspaper. Here the news and information is coming from trusted friends. They're sharing links and quick snippets of news and information. And like a newspaper, you don't read every story, you glance and browse when you have a few minutes.

In another case, you use social networking tools for networking. Duh. And like networking in real life, you do it when you have the time. And knowing that it's networking that leads to some of your best work, you work networking into your schedule. Otherwise your family goes hungry.

It's 4:30 p.m. on a Friday here on the West Coast and I haven't used any social networking tools or sites today except for leaving a comment on Josh's blog just now, posting a correction to my blog early this am, and writing this post.

So though I am a 'user' of these mediums that some may call mad and all time consuming, they do not absorb all my time. I was involved in meetings with my CFO, VP of Client Development, and Creative Director until 2 or 3 today and then working on client development matters after that.

Having said that, the seeds I planted yesterday via Twitter and LinkedIn are bearing fruit today. Took me 20 or 30 minutes yesterday to publish a blog post with links to a powerpoint and webcast of a recent webinar I did. Then shared the post with folks on Twitter.

Between people getting my RSS feeds and people following me on Twitter, I've seen mention of that powerpoint and webinar all over the place today - blogs, other folks mentioning it on Twitter, and in copies of emails my readers sent to their business associates telling them about the powerpoint and screencast. Also received some nice emails thanking me for sharing the materials.

I also spent 15 minutes on LinkedIn yesterday inviting people I had the occasion to meet via the net recently to join my my professional network at LinkedIn. I received notice today that a number of those folks accepted my invite as well as one or two thank you notes for my asking them to hook up on LinkedIn.

Bottom line is social networking tools can be used effectively without them becoming all time consuming. And like Josh guesses, 'one has to try different services and then see over time which network pays the biggest dividends, and then focus on that one.'

Now, just don't ask my wife and five kids if I spend too much time on the net. ;)

This micro blogging tool with posts or 'tweets' limited to 140 characters, which I was afraid to admit in public that I used, is generating some discussion among legal marketing professionals.

First, Twitter broke into a legal marketing listserv discussion last week. 'What is it? Does anyone see any value to using it?' Then today, legal Internet marketing expert, Steve Matthews, comes out with an excellent intro to Twitter for lawyer marketing, including 7 steps for test driving Twitter.

Don't expect Twitter to take the legal industry by storm yet, but take note of what Steve says you ought to now.

...Politicians in the current US election are levering it, news outlets like CNN & Canada's CBC are offering headlines that can be mixed into your reading stream, and companies like Southwest airlines are using it to interact with customers & take feedback.

It's widely considered the fastest growing tool of web influence, and will at some point have a trickle down effect for the legal industry.

And though this may sound absolutely insane, LexBlog may pick up some very good work through Twitter - with larger law firms. And until a month or two ago, I thought Twitter was just a distraction. Let me share 4 stories.

1. Working one night last week I was 'tweeting' about the Mariners game while I was listening to it on MLB.com. A lawyer in DC who owns a piece of a minor league team, who had been following me on Twitter, replied back with a direct message about baseball first, which then led to his request to discuss doing some blogs for a number of lawyers back there.
2. I 'm regularly exchanging comments via Twitter with a person in IT & Business Development in a top 5 law firm. Very good chance of leading to work with that firm.
3. A week ago Sunday Robert Scoble, one of most widely followed bloggers in the world, 'tweeted' to his 21,000 followers on Twitter that he liked following my blog and following me on Twitter. Robert said he liked what I wrote and said and that I was a smart guy (take that for what it's worth). Anyhow, it brought a huge immediate increase in people following me on Twitter. Where that goes I don't know, but a lot more people are following me on Twitter, including some reporters and lawyers.
4. I expanded my relationship with high profile PR person via Twitter which led to a speaking engagement at a major national blogging and new media conference.

Interesting thing about Twitter, and I don't think most lawyers or firms are ready to use it, is that the people who may follow you are heavy influencers of others. They are people who blog and otherwise virally spread what they hear. If you are providing incite on a niche through Twitter, word can be spread very rapidly.

You can benefit from Twitter in three ways, that I see today. First, a way to socially network with people, some of which networking may lead to work, speaking engagements, and the like. Two, a means to amplify your message, i.e., spreading what you what you may be blogging, writing, or speaking on. Three, if you blog, you are going to get news from other bloggers whose content you may want to reference in your blog or work.

By the way, if you are going to experiment with Twitter, use an application such as Twhirl. It makes things much easier to understand and follow than using the Twitter home page alone. And if using Twitter on a mobile device there is m.twitter.com.

Related posts:

• Twitter in plain English video
• How to use Twitter
• Using Twitter to promote your blog
• Twitter madness & the Scoble effect
  

Though Stones focuses on FriendFeed, a new social networking tool allowing people to follow what their trusted friends are following, the message of following what trusted people are turning you onto, no matter the social networking tool, is the take away.

Search engines like Google, so effective for general information hunting, do a poor job of cutting through these thickets of user-generated material. For the Internet-addicted, the problem is further intensified by 'lifecasting' services like Twitter and the Google-owned Jaiku, which let people use their cellphones to fire off Haiku-length text notices, both profound and mundane......That's where the sites like FriendFeed, Iminta, Plaxo, Readr, Mugshot and others try to harness the wisdom of friends. They let their users choose whose feeds they want to follow -- the relationship does not have to be reciprocal -- and allow them to restrict their own feeds only to people with whom they feel comfortable.

Following the feeds of people you like and admire, these companies say, allows the serendipitous discovery of needles in the information haystack. 'Friends are likely to have some similar interests and tastes. Just the fact that your friends find it interesting should make it more interesting to you,' said Paul Buchheit, one of FriendFeed's four founders, all of them former Google engineers.

.....Last week, for example, Mr. Buchheit's followers on FriendFeed were treated to what he himself had discovered and found valuable online: links to interviews with the investor Peter Thiel in Reason magazine and the Google co-founder Larry Page in Fortune, an article about Justice Antonin Scalia's views on torture on a political Web site, and a YouTube video of nine kittens moving their heads in rhythm to a song, among other Internet ephemera.

Makes a lot of sense. Begin following people with similar interests as you have. Whether via a blog, Twitter, Delicious, FriendFeed, Facebook, or whatever.

Doing so makes the conversation going on all around on online media less voluminous and more meaningful.

His points with my commentary:

1. Blogger relations: (a) pitching bloggers and (b) conversational marketing. PR with bloggers is dramatically different than PR as law firms know it. Do not send me a press release. Get to know me. Establish a relationship with me, preferably through your own blog.
2. Employee social media training. No one is saying lawyers and legal marketing professionals are going to master social media overnight. But bringing in social media experts to talk with the firm and its lawyers and getting folks out to social media conferences (not legal marketing conferences) is a good start.
3. Social media marketing: (a) customer service, (b) product development, (c) social media optimization (note: some people debate the ethics of this approach) (d) public affairs, and (e) conversational marketing. It's going to take a leap of faith, but law firms have much to gain from testing the social media marketing mediums being used by innovative companies, like as their own clients.
4. Changing business culture based on social media strategies. Using social media for internal processes and leadership transformation. Rather than arbitrary rules against blogging, Facebook, and the like, start using them on at least a trial basis.

Share John's outline with folks in your law firm and your friends in the business. It's a nice outline from which to fill in the details.

I'm thinking someone wrote a script that's causing 'spam followers,' if you will. I'm getting ready to set up a filter in my mail app to send all emails saying someone was following me on Twitter into spam. I was just thinking the last week that Twitter is a cool tool that I'm figuring out how to use. Then this.

So I 'tweet' that 'I am getting hit by 'spam followers,' has anyone had that happen to them?" Saad Kamai replied that 'Somebody recommended you in Twitter, so i guess its natural to get a couple of new 'followers.'

Couple new followers? More than that. And who has that type of draw? That type of influence to recommend an unknown (I am one) and get folks to start following what you are saying?

Then the answer from Phil Ferris in West Cornwall, UK: "Scoble recommended you a few minutes ago in a Tweet. I call it the Scoble Effect."

Quick look back in Twirl, my Twitter application, and sure enough.

Scobleizer: I love reading @kevinokeefe who today linked to a thing about lawbloggers doing journalism. He's a lawyer and a blogger and smart too.

Robert apparently picked up via a tweet of mine that I had posted about lawyers and investigative journalism.

Wow Robert. I'm honored. Seriously. But you'll need to give folks a warning of what's coming - when you're ready to Scobleize them.

Like Jerry Yang when he called Jeff Bezos 12 years ago and said Yahoo was going to name Amazon the 'site of the day.' Bezos thought sure and couldn't figure out why Wang was asking. But Yang wanted to warn him of what's to come. Bezos had bells on each employees computers (a few only) that rang with each book purchase. Guess the next day when Yahoo did the site of the day the bells rang all day.

Good thing I have the bell notifying me of new emails on mail app turned off. Otherwise the folks in this sleepy little coffee shop would, like me, wonder what the heck's going on.

Let there be no question as to the influence one person can have on others through blogging and social networking.

As community evangelist for LinkedIn and editor of the LinkedIn blog, Mario - who also writes Marketing Nirvana, a blog covering marketing and social networking - spoke to us in an official capacity, commenting on how LinkedIn uses their official blog to communicate with users and where some the site's more recent features (groups, etc.) may ultimately become. See the full text after the jump.

1. Rob La Gatta: Why did you start the LinkedIn Blog?

Mario Sundar: The LinkedIn Blog was started with the desire to provide an easy access to LinkedIn users where they could turn to, either with a question, comment or feedback. If I could enumerate the reasons we had on top-of-mind when we started the blog, it was to:

• Be the source of information on all things related to LinkedIn, whether it be new features or tips-and-tricks to get the most out of LinkedIn
• Be a point-of-contact with our users when they had questions related to [the] product or otherwise
• Proactively initiate the conversation on professional networking with the millions of LinkedIn users (currently 21 million and counting...)
• Maintain that conversation via active participation through comments on both our blog as well as other blogs out there
• Educate users on how to best use LinkedIn (Best Practices, Tips-and-Tricks, How other professionals are using LinkedIn, etc...)
• Take user feedback to our internal teams (product, engineering, design, etc...)

2. Rob La Gatta: Do you see any value in someday having members of the LinkedIn management team writing for the blog? Do any of them blog already?

Mario Sundar: Absolutely. The role of the blog is to break down the barrier that sometimes exist between internal teams of an organization and the users of a product/service. As Hugh Macleod of Gaping Void succinctly puts it, it’s about making more porous the membrane that exists between the two.

We’ve had our CEO, Dan Nye, respond to user feedback on earlier blog posts (via NYT blog). We’ve also had our VP of Product Strategy and co-founder Allen Blue, blog in the past. Moving forward, I hope to bring other members of the team to either blog or respond to user comments. Also, I’m really glad that we’ve had almost 40 colleagues of mine (from product, engineering and design) contribute on our blog already. That’s like 18% of the workforce [that] has already blogged on the LinkedIn blog.

3. Rob La Gatta: What type of response has the blog generated from users? Have any changes to the site's UI come directly from feedback posted in comments at the blog?

Mario Sundar: The blog definitely has a very healthy involvement from the users with an average of 9 comments/post. Of course, some product posts receive almost 75 comments, so it widely varies with each post (as is expected). We’ve had everything from kudos to product feedback on the blog, and I make it a point to reroute that feedback to the right individuals.

Changes do happen via user feedback: most recently, we introduced RSS updates for Network Updates, which had been asked by users in the past. And, as I said, I definitely make it a point to take an aggregation of user feedback to product/engineering, teams etc...

4. Rob La Gatta: We started a Legal Blogging group and saw it take off almost overnight. Have you seen similar results with other groups? Ideally, what purpose would LinkedIn Groups serve?

Mario Sundar: LinkedIn Groups is, in my opinion, a dark-horse feature...and one of my personal favorites. Since we made it easier to start and maintain groups on LinkedIn, we’ve seen it take off in a big way. Currently, groups not only help you stay in touch with like minded professionals, but also connect with them directly (which is something you cannot do as a free member).

You also have the opportunity to attach a badge, whereby your professional preferences can virally spread through your network updates. Moving forward, the product team is working on helping you get more out of groups. Stay tuned to the LinkedIn Blog for news on that as and when it happens.

5. Rob La Gatta: How personalized do you ultimately see profiles becoming? Do you see any possibility for a time when bloggers can have a feed for their blog built in, syndicating their latest posts directly to their profile?

Mario Sundar: We currently don’t have plans to offer that functionality.

As a blogger myself, I do link to my 2 blogs on my LinkedIn Profile, and I also try to update my LinkedIn Status with my latest blog post.

Interested in hearing more? Recent LexBlog Q & A posts:

• Kevin Livingston & Dennis Pfaff, the editorial team behind Thelen's Climate Law Update [4.17.08]
• Anita Campbell, editor-in-chief of Small Business Trends [4.15.08]
• Steve Matthews of Stem Legal, discussing the state of the Canadian legal blogosphere [4.11.08]
• John Sirman, manager of TexasBar.com and technology editor for the Texas Bar Journal [4.10.08]
• Robert Scoble, video blogger for Fast Company.TV and author of the technology blog Scobleizer [4.8.08]

A recent article article in Law Technology News (Is the Party Over for Social Networking?) and blog post by Martindale-Hubbell ('social networking – does not draw lawyers') reminds me of the same. Both write off lawyers use of social networking.

This at a time when LinkedIn, the leading professional social networking site, lists 118,000 profiles from those describing themselves in the practice of law and is profiling each of the largest law firms based on social networking at LinkedIn by their lawyers.

Interesting that many quoted in the Law Technology News story see the advantages and significant growth in social networking for lawyers. Nonetheless, the headline was couched to create the opposite impression.

And the headline certainly worked. New York Magazine citing the Law Technology reported 'News Attendees at the American Bar Association's ABA Techshow in Chicago have declared social-networking sites over.' No question the magazine put this in to laugh at our profession.

Martindale's position that social networking for lawyers is dead? Probably based on a combination of not knowing what is taking place and protecting their territory.

Rather than create sensational headlines to generate discussion or misleading lawyers to sell your products, let's give social networking time.

It's new. Social networking sites are still being perfected. Lawyers and legal marketing professionals are still trying to figure it out.

But like the Internet, social networking for lawyers is not a fad.

LinkedIn company profiles for each of the 20 largest law firms in the country include the following info:

• Firm synopsis
• Career path of lawyers before joining the firm
• Career path of lawyers before joining the firm
• Who law firm employees are most connected to
• New hires
• Recent Promotions and position changes
• Popular firm member profiles
• BusinessWeek profile and related news
• Top locations of firm
• Top schools lawyers graduated from
• Median age
• Gender breakdown

Here's a list of the LinkedIn law firm profiles for AmLaw's top 20 largest firms with the number of their LinkedIn members in just my LinkedIn network. The total number of LinkedIn members for each firm I am sure is much higher. Click on the firm's name to see their LinkedIn profile.

• Skadden Arps: 478 LinkedIn members in my LinkedIn network
• Latham & Watkins: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Baker & McKenzie: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Jones Day: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Sidley Austin: 330 LinkedIn membersk
• White & Case: 337 LinkedIn members
• Kirkland & Ellis: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Mayer Brown: 215 LinkedIn members
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges: 316 LinkedIn members
• Greenberg Traurig: 470 LinkedIn members
• DLA Piper: 500+ LinkedIn members
• Morgan, Lewis & Bockius: 429 LinkedIn members
• Sullivan & Cromwell: 239 LinkedIn members
• Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr: 203 LinkedIn members
• O'Melveny & Meyers: 302 LinkedIn members
• McDermott Will & Emery: 307 LinkedIn members
• Shearman & Sterling: 257 LinkedIn members
• Paul Hastings: 334 LinkedIn members
• Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton: 183 LinkedIn members
• Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher: 271 LinkedIn members

How are the profiles being constructed? Via social networking.

Lawyers in the firms are creating individual lawyer profiles at LinkedIn. There are 118,000 LinkedIn profiles listing their profession as a the practice of law.

Those profiles are constantly being updated. Not only by the lawyers themselves, but more importantly by LinkedIn's social networking features.

Don't look now, but LinkedIn may over the next couple years become a more effective way to get a 360 degree view of a law firm than a law firm's own website and any of the major lawyer directories.

How does a law firm tout innovativeness on the front page of their website with such bans? How does a law firm recruit and retain lawyers who see competitors using blogs to enhance their reputation and grow business? How can you recruit summer associates and recent law grads when banning social networking tools that are as natural to recruits as the use of a phone?

How long does a large law firm expect word to get around on their bans? It takes about 30 minutes for an email or news about such policies to reach David Lat at Above the Law, the most widely read online legal publication, especially for the vast majority of law students and lawyers under 40. Get your ban policy published on Above The Law and you're being laughed at by tens of thousands of folks.

Then this morning I see from Carolyn Elefant that a recent study commissioned by an Australian law firm found if companies deny access to Facebook, they may find themselves unable to recruit younger employees, who view a Facebook ban as a 'betrayal of trust.' 

The study, which surveyed 700 people by phone, found that almost half of those who used social networking sites at work would choose an employer with permissible policies over one who blocked access.  While only 14 percent of employees surveyed said they used the Internet at work, not surprisingly, usage was higher among younger respondents, with a third of 16- to 24-year olds and a quarter of 25- to 34-year olds logging into Facebook sometime during the work day.  The study results suggest that companies attempting to recruit younger workers may have to reconsider their Internet policies in order to compete, suggested Nick Abrahams of Deacons, the Australian firm that commissioned the study.

Carolyn went on to warn, 'A Facebook ban might minimize a company's potential legal liability -- but it doesn't necessarily serve a company's business interests since it could hamper efforts to recruit younger employees and reduce workplace morale.'