Recently in Web 2.0 Category

The events that have unfolded in Iran following the contested presidential election have transfixed the world.  Much of the information that has come out of (and into) the country has traveled over social media services as a result of censorship and blocking of communications systems by the government. 

The crisis in Iran has allowed Twitter, the microblogging service, to mature into a legitimate and important communication tool.  Twitter has played such a prominent role in allowing mobilization and documentation of the Iranian opposition that the US State Department at one point even asked the company to put off a scheduled maintenance so that Iranians could continue using the service.

In this post, guest author Jim Groff of PBWorks describes the benefits of knowledge management systems for law firms, as well as the difficulties some firms have had in convincing their attorneys and staff to adopt knowledge management solutions.  Groff argues that Web 2.0 technologies can increase the adoption of knowledge management systems, and thus the benefit to law firms, by integrating the systems with attorneys' everyday experiences.

Throughout the history of the electronic age, firms have attempted to implement legal knowledgebases.  The promise of a systematic database of the firm's proprietary expertise has always appealed to the partnership, but wave after wave of legal knowledgebases have failed, largely for the simple reason that lawyers didn't use them.