Finding something on Social Media 101 for the right audience can at times be a challenge. There are plenty of basic documents for business, marketing and Public Relations. But what about lawyers, librarians and others? What if your audience does not care about “building a strategy” but just wants to know what social media is and how it is used?

On a recent hunt for just such material, I came across a nice briefing series from the Canadian Library of Parliament written last year. The series includes five publications on selected topics:

• Social Media 1: Introduction by Michael Dewing (Feb

Most online defamation actions I encounter primarily seek one form of relief – the removal of the offending material from the Internet. Damages and costs are often a secondary concern to clients, albeit important ones, especially in offsetting the impact on the individual’s reputation and the inconvenience of litigation.

A Malaysian case this week highlights another creative remedy that might be of interest to litigants structuring an out-of-court settlement. The Daily Mail describes the case,

Fahmi Fadzil, an opposition politician’s aide and respected commentator, claimed on the social networking site [Twitter] that his pregnant friend had been

Here’s a report alleging that Telus drove a BC woman out of business by maniplulating regulators and courts with false information.

via BoingBoing

Her story seems legit. If so, it’s a real failure on the part of our justice system. . . . [more]

News reports say that there may be a postal strike in Canada later this week. If it goes ahead, I’m wondering if it might be a tipping point that leads to even less mail being sent.

If we look at the mail we receive at home (after we recycle the junk mail), much of it is bills to pay. The major utilities and credit card companies have online bill presentment options that they encourage us to use. I suspect there are a lot of people who have not made the switch to receiving their bills online simply because they are . . . [more]

Currently Universities and Colleges across Canada are spending hundreds of man-and-woman hours pulling together a list of copy machines, computers, scanners, etc., at the whim of Access Canada Copyright (got the name wrong throughout this post, initially), the agency created, and then named in high irony, to restrict the educational use of materials, to pursue an obsolete model of protecting the interests of creators, and to funnel the resulting funds into pockets unknown. At least, that’s what you might think their mandate was if you judged by their actions. For their self-image, see their About Us page.

Backed . . . [more]

I’d like to introduce a new website geared toward solo practitioners. Small Firm Innovation is still in soft-launch mode, and you’ll notice a few gaps as you navigate through the website; but early indications are that this website will capture some interesting solo perspectives. And as you’ll see below, a little CanCon to boot.

But first the disclaimers. Fellow Slaw-contributor Jack Newton and his community sherpa Gwynne Monahan at Clio are the guiding forces behind the website. In our Stem roles, colleague Jordan Furlong and myself will also be contributing, as will a host of other recognizable names.

Now . . . [more]

Following up on Dave Bilinsky’s post earlier this month, the BC distance family mediation project at Mediate BC has launched a new blog.

Located at distancemediation.ca, Susanna Jani’s goal is to provide more insights surrounding the project, and (of interest to me) reflections on how different technologies can support the families and mediators when they aren’t in the same room. As the project moves forward, regardless of whether one’s interests are in the area of mediation or technology, the insights provided should prove interesting to Slaw readers. . . . [more]

Can the owner of a web site accessible on the public internet refuse to allow some other person to post a link to that site, identifying whose site it is? Can the owner of the site insist that the person who wants to post the link enter into a licence agreement?

Does it make a difference to the answer if the person who wants to post a link wants to identify the site in part by the use of the principal trade mark (or logo, more likely) registered by the owner of the site? Or would it be cleaner for . . . [more]

This week’s Lawyer’s Weekly features an article by Luis Milan titled Experts Warn Cloud Computing Still Risky. The article cites recent data breaches at Sony Corp. and Epsilon Data Management as a catalyst for concern around cloud computing, and goes on to cite several experts on the potential privacy implications of these data breaches.

The only problem? Neither data breach, as the article’s title implies, has anything to do with cloud computing.

The Sony data breach, where personal information for millions of its Playstation Network users was compromised, was not the result of Sony’s cloud computing infrastructure being . . . [more]

SkyNews is broadcasting live the hearings at the UK Supreme Court. As the site says, “The Court normally sits between 10am and 4pm” UK time, which means that most of Canada will have to get up very early to enjoy this show. At the moment (10am ET), however, I’m watching something called Scottish Widows plc (Respondent) v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (Appellant) (Scotland) – UKSC 2010/0178. (Perhaps it’s been recorded and is being re-played.) The court and the hapless barrister are fumbling for perhaps fifteen minutes as the lawyer tries to direct the court to the correct . . . [more]

A simple question for Slaw-yers: was #Elxn41 the “Social Media Election”?

The term was tossed about during the campaign with conjecture on how social media would impact the election; so now that the election is over and we have had some time to reflect, was it the “social media election”? I am unsure, but my inclination is that it was not. Primarily because I did not see a lot of content generated specifically for social media, nor have I observed an impact that can be attributed to social media. I saw of lot of content generated in a traditional fashion . . . [more]

LisNews points us to an interesting alert on the vulnerability of ebook reader apps to linkspamming, phishing and, potentially, the full range of malicious exploits.

As the full potential of hypertext for the communication of book-length works is incrementally being explored, I suppose this development is inevitable. . . . [more]