Web-Tones

Enabling Law 2.0: People, Process & Platform

What is LawTechTV (LTTV)?

Glad you asked. It is the new direction for the Web-Tones blog that will feature “chalk talk” videos on various legal technology topics: applications, knowledge management, marketing/new media, practice management, infrastructure and more.

This content will be brought to you by Web-Tones, with “a little help from my friends.”

LTTV is a legal technology consulting firm that helps clients with online marketing(including SEO), technology and infrastructure strategies enabling them to effectively participate in Law 2.0. If you are interested in experiencing the difference check out our services here. To contact us click here.
 

Stay tuned…

Google Apps Downtime

Link: Official Gmail Blog: We feel your pain, and we're sorry. Yes, Google Apps was down again yesterday. I was impacted for about twenty minutes or so, based on my usage at the time, others were impacted more severely.

I believe that Google has their reputation on the line and therefore they obviously take any down time seriously as they should. The question is not will there be down time, but rather "how will your technology partner respond?"

If you are an MS shop, how many times has your Exchange Server gone down? Do you have a world class team working on the problem when it does? The answer to first question is probably often enough to have caused significant pain. The answer to the second question, for almost all firms, including "Big Law," is NO.

Yes you should be concerned with any Web 2.0 technology partner that you use. Absolutely. I am not going to risk my practice on a vendor that might be here today and gone tomorrow. But I remain confident (and quite pleased) with Google Apps, despite the fact that there has been downtime recently.

100% uptime is a myth. However, that is ultimately the objective, and Google will continue to work on the problem until they begin to approximate it. You can bet on it.  I have.

MS & the Open Source Community?

Link: history.forward() - Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft. The boys from Redmond have been quietly reaching out to the the Open Source Community for quite some time and now apparently they are doing it in a much more public way.

This is obviously a recognition by MS that open source is a force to be reckoned with and is here to stay. MS is changing its world view because events on the ground have forced them to. They are pragmatic. They are neither good nor evil. They are behaving as a rational monopolist would, despite the fact that their monopoly is "not what it use to be."

The same is true for Google. They are neither good nor evil. They will simply behave (as they should) like a rational monopolist. When companies possess this kind of market power they both influence, and are controlled by, the market.

But as we all know, this is not always the case. IBM missed the PC opportunity. Microsoft missed Search. Why? Because they were "out innovated" and because their existing monopolies got in the way. This will happen to Google as well, but not in Search. MS did not steal IBM's mainframe market, they invented an entirely new industry. Ditto Google.

What about Big Law? They are not likely to be unseated from their respective areas of market dominance. But if history is a good teacher, they are likely to be out innovated and likely as well to miss the transformation that is occurring in the practice of law. Their existing "monopolies" will get in the way.

Will Google Own the Cloud?

Link: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The cloud's not-so-silver lining. One of the reasons that Google might eventually own the cloud is that it doesn't need the money. Huh?

Google can monetize its investments in ways not available to its competitors. It can afford to give away the entry level Google Apps edition, and offer "dirt cheap" pricing on the more "upscale" version(s), because its search business is so profitable.

Search is also still a "sleeper app." Huh? You heard it right. The power of search has not fully been tapped and appreciated from an applications perspective. I wrote about that here in Search, KM & the Practice of Law.

I recently placed a tech support call with one of the giants of the tech industry and the "help desk" person chose to use Google instead of their own systems to find product information. Why? It was faster. I often use Google for case law research before using my paid options. Why? It is faster to get a quick overview this way.

Law firms have barely begun to tap the power of search. From a purely selfish perspective I hope that they don't!

Katy Bar the Door?

Link: Strategic Legal Technology :: The Client View of Legal Outsourcing - Sun Microsytems Speaks. Legal outsourcing, like technology outsourcing, is here to stay. It should come as no surprise that the global economy is in fact, well, global. Law firms are not going to be spared from the competitive pressures that outsourcing in general represents. Look for more layoffs at Big Law as the legal industry continues to struggle with the changing economic landscape.

Innovate or die--no longer just a mantra for technology companies.

Is the A-List Dead?

Link: The Death Of The A-list. It is not clear to me whether the A-List is dead, but if not dead then clearly dying.

Why? for many of the reasons cited in the link and for others that are not. The "A-List" thing is like an artist that has a "great run" but inevitably fades. Fans move on. New fans are born. People begin to roll their own A-List. Whatever.

I mean who really gives a crap about the Yahoo/Microsoft deal besides the tech echo chamber? They have turned this piece of news into a kind of "Internet Tabloid" rant. It's like the constant rants about KM within the legal tech community. The cool thing is not talking about it but rather using it as a competitive advantage.

There is a perceptible shift taking placed between interest in people talking about technology and interest in applying it. I much prefer the latter. As far as I can tell most business owners do as well.

The "times they are a changing" and it is time to get busy doing.