Way back in December rumours were flying about the social bookmarking site Delicious. Various reports had it that owner Yahoo! would be closing it down. Slaw’s own Steve Matthews even put together the post R.I.P. Delicious tracing its pending demise. Many people looked for an alternative and exported their bookmarks to other sites in anticipation of it being closed. Some of those alternative services welcomed the new members with open arms, even creating tools for transferring the bookmarks over.

Fast forward: an announcement came out in May 2011 announcing the sale of Delicious to AVOS, owned by YouTube . . . [more]

In recent presentations and teaching I have been sharing some numbers about social network use compared against mobile use by Canadians. I have put those numbers together in a few slides that might be of interest–these slides are downloadable for anyone who would like to use them.

I have included a disclaimer (second slide) just to warn everyone these numbers are from a range of sources and therefore likely were compiled using different methods. So, these numbers are meant for general interest rather than to be used to make business decisions that would rely on the numbers.

I note these . . . [more]

I have in the past complained about the abysmal lack of online access to Canadian court dockets at the same time as trying to compile a list of known links to Canadian court dockets to my Case Law research page on my legal research and writing website.

In addition to the new LexisNexis Canada dockets service I mentioned last week, a colleague has pointed out the free Canadian Federal Courts dockets service at IPPractice.ca, a website maintained by Alan Macek of Dimock Stratton LLP, a great site that does not yet appear to have been mentioned on SLAW . . . [more]

In what is very welcome news, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has released a practice direction, effective 1 October 2011, authorizing the use of reliable online versions of court decisions for filing in books of authorities and providing for special citation rules:

Practice Direction Regarding Filing of Judicial Decisions from Electronic Databases, and Regarding Citation of All Judicial Decisions

Practice Direction

Judicial Decisions from Electronic Databases

Effective October 1, 2011, copies of judicial decisions obtained from approved electronic databases are acceptable for filing provided the report of the judicial decision contains paragraph numeration consistent with the numbering of

While Dropbox continues to lead the way in easy-to-use cloud-based file synchronization, recent security- and privacy-related lapses have left many Dropbox-loving lawyers looking for alternatives. To date there has been a lack of viable options, but AeroFS, a new startup, is looking to become the Dropbox for security-conscious users.

AeroFS offers the same ease-of-use that characterizes Dropbox, but adds a new spin to how file synchronization works: rather than storing your files in the “cloud”, as is the case with Dropbox, AeroFS synchronizes files directly between your devices via an encrypted channel. This “peer-to-peer” synchronization technique means your data never . . . [more]

Larry Bodine, former law firm marketing consultant known for his LawMarketing Blog, has been named the new editor-in-chief of Lawyers.com and Martindale.com. (If you are in Canada the Lawyers.com link may flip you to the Canadian site http://www.canadian-lawyers.ca/ unfortunately).

According to an article from the Law Technology News on September 16, Bodine has indicated he is going to overhaul the Lawyers.com site:

…the site could stand improvement, Bodine said. Currently its content is aggregated from other sites. “The switch that I want to make is generating our own material. You’re going to see a complete change

The Fifteenth Annual Canadian Information Technology Law Association (“IT.CAN”) Conference will be held in Toronto on October 27-28, 2011. For the full conference brochure including registration details, visit the IT.CAN website. (I’ve also included it here on Slaw.)

If you have any questions about the program contact Lisa Ptack, IT.CAN Executive Director, at lisa.ptack@rogers.com. This program is accredited by provincial Law Societies for CLE credit. . . . [more]

Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell have an excellent piece in Law Practice Today on 10 non-marketing uses of social media; very basic items such as ‘reconnecting’, or ‘learning a new subject matter’. It’s well worth a look.

One recurring thought that hit me as I read it, though, was that for each and every suggestion (whether intended or not) there was excellent marketing value being delivered. Marketing should never be considered simply running around flogging articles, or speaking like we’re reading from an advertising script. If those are the only activities someone takes part in online, you might . . . [more]

E-mail’s days as a communication medium that offers a “reasonable expectation of privacy” may be numbered.

The ABA’s newly issued Formal Opinion 11-459 revisits the topic of e-mail security, and offers the following concluding paragraph:

A lawyer sending or receiving substantive communications with a client via e-mail or other electronic means ordinarily must warn the client about the risk of sending or receiving electronic communications using a computer or other device, or e-mail account, to which a third party may gain access. The risk may vary. Whenever a lawyer communicates with a client by e-mail, the lawyer must first consider

Michael S. Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg and inventor of the idea for the eBook way way way back in 1971 in the pre-WWW, pre-smart phone, pre-Kindle, pre-commercialization of everything on the Internet era, died earlier this week. He was 64. Librarians (and computer geeks) thought the world of him.

The Project Gutenberg website has published an obituary:

Hart was best known for his 1971 invention of electronic books, or eBooks. He founded Project Gutenberg, which is recognized as one of the earliest and longest-lasting online literary projects. He often told this story of how he had the idea

1) Updates to law-related movies:

Thanks to law librarian Christina López at Pitblado LLP in Winnipeg for mentioning a 1931 movie directed by Fritz Lang called “M.”

I have added an entry for this movie to my list of law-related movies, which sort of makes a nice counterpart to the movie “Z,” earlier recommended by one of the Simons.

I haven’t seen the movie and I suspect it may be hard to rent (Christina mentioning she saw it years ago at a revival movie theatre in Montreal).

It tells the story of a child murderer in Germany and . . . [more]

This is an interesting addendum to the ABA session ““Friend” Is Now a Verb: Judicial Ethics and the New Social Media“. In the Financial Post‘s Legal Post section from August 2nd, Mitch Kowalski notes Oklahoma’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Panel released an opinion on judges and social media in that state on July 6, 2011. The Oklahoma State Courts Network (OSCN.net) has the full Judicial Ethics Opinion 2011-3.

From the opinion:

¶1 Questions: 1. May a Judge hold an internet social account, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin without violating the Code of Judicial Conduct?

¶2 2.