I tried to do some research to figure this out and I came across some strange results. This result here posted yesterday (June 24th) seems to be the oldest mention of Michael Jackson’s death, from a Twitter’er named Aimee Mitchell. Who when you visit her profile history, has deleted her previous mention of MJ’s passing. Additionally, Aimee’s history only goes back to June 20th. Very, very bizarre. There’s an earlier tweet below Aimee’s that also mentions MJ’s death but it’s repetitive/spammy and shows up multiple times under multiple accounts within older posts. It just seems coincidental.

UPDATE: TMZ is credited with first publishing Jackson’s death Thursday, June 25 at 5:20 PM

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. As we’re all aware, there was once a phrase called Web 2.0 that defined a time in online innovation, marking the arrival of various websites and apps that had a fresh, glossy look and feel, where social interaction was emphasized but form and function didn’t always align, and sharing content via social bookmarking, social news, and social networking was par for the course. Today however things have changed. It’s apparent who’s responsible for the revolution, yet only a fraction of the pie they are indeed a large piece. Twitter has brought real time information delivery to our desktops and mobile devices, something that didn’t previously exist. We can see the benefits and all the great ways in which businesses and individuals are leveraging Twitter so I think if there were one phrase that could define the web right now, it would be ‘Real Time’ or ‘Web RT’. This also cleverly touches on Twitter terminology meaning ‘retweet’.

Yes Twitter is indeed becoming mainstream, so much so that Pepsi has added their twitter address to their cans, Dell ( @DellOutlet ) had made over $2 mil in revenue from their Twitter account alone selling discounted or outlet priced computers. A cat has over 600,000 followers. Celebrity Ashton Kutcher has 2.1 million followers, the most out of anyone ever. Someone started a Twitter petition that went viral, attempting to get at&t to “offer reasonable iPhone 3GS upgrade prices”. Businesses, celebrities, authors, individuals are all using Twitter is some way. You get it… the list goes on.

With that said, what would YOU call the ‘New Web’? Scoble wants to call it ‘Web 2010’. Some are calling it ‘Web 3.0’. Personally I think ‘Web RT’ not only touches on what’s happening now but also rolls off the tongue pretty nicely. Add your suggestion in the comments below and later we can put together a poll to figure out the best phrase for this movement.  Maybe your suggestion touches more on the mobile aspect of our time with the advent of the iPhone or maybe it’s about a loss of privacy. Let us know your thoughts.

There are hundreds of thousands of legal practices out there, all of which have a website and some of which engage in online marketing. Some firms are exceptional at this and in some cases; creep into black hat marketing tactics, while other firms have an utterly dismal online presence, having last updated their website years ago. What some firms may or may not know is that kicking your website into gear to be more interactive, more search friendly, and more indexable isn’t that difficult. Making small improvements to your site can really help and potentially lead to new business. The following are five simple ways in which you can bolster your firm’s online presence.

Create a Blog
Adding a blog to your site is a sure fire way to increase indexation. By blogging you’ll not only be adding new and legal related content to your site but you’ll also give your readers a way to subscribe to your content in their feed reader via your blog’s RSS feed. You can also sync your blog’s feed to your Facebook account or fanpage and your Twitter account so that both places will publish your content the moment it’s published on your blog. Additionally, services like Feedburner and Feedblitz can automatically capture email addresses and email your subscribers your blog’s latest post to their email inbox. Globally, WordPress is the blogging CMS of choice which is free to download and install. There are thousands of free themes out there that you can choose from and later customize to match the look and feel of your existing site. Blogging will ultimately increase your indexation, traffic, and potentially bring in new business if you’re blogging about legal issues and answering common legal questions your readers may have.

Get Rid of Flash
There are so many sites out there that are entirely built on flash. Get rid of it! It may look pretty but it’s usually not helping. Are you interested in giving a prospective client a bouquet of daisies or providing the helpful information they seek? Your audience is looking for counsel and information on legal matters. Delivering the answers they seek quickly without being superfluous is more likely to gain new clients. Additionally and perhaps more importantly, flash can’t be parsed/read by search engine bots. The more your site is built on flash, the less readable and indexable it will be. Some flash is ok in small doses but do avoid building your entire site in flash.

Local Search Campaigning
Most legal practices are locally based and if this is the case for you then you should really be hitting the pavement with local search. Make sure your locality is represented in your title tags and or descriptions. For instance your title tag may look like:

Mesothelioma, Accident Attorney & Medical Malpractice Attorney, Boston MA | Bob Loblaw PPC

And you’ll want to be sure to canvas the local directories with you business information. Here are some places to get you started:

Best ROI:
Google Local Business
Yelp
Citysearch
Yahoo Local
Judy’s Book

Others to consider:
Local
Insider Pages
True Local
Super Pages
Dex Knows
Localeze
Yellowbot
Grayboxx

Editing Your Meta Data
Making sure your title tags and description tags are keyword laden and different on every page is an SEO 101 update that you can easily make. If you know what type of client you want and what they’d probably search for, take these keyword phrases and pump them into a keyword research tool like Wordtracker (paid) or Google Keyword Tool (free). Once you have a short list of targeted keyword phrases, add these to your title tags where appropriate. Make sure the title tags speak to the content contained on the page you’re editing the title tag for. You’ll want the description to be similar in that it contains some keywords and is relevant to the content on its respective page.

Answer Legal Questions
Establishing yourself online as an expert in your field can be done overtime by leveraging the following services. You’ll also want to consider using Twitter and the Twitter search site to find people who may have legal questions in your area. You can search geographically within Twitter under the advanced search option.

Best ROI
Twitter
Yahoo Answers
LinkedIn

Other Places to Consider:
Maholo Answers
Wiki Answers
Answer Bag
Yedda
Fluther
Wondir

Should your firm need a new, robust website or search engine optimization and search engine marketing services, please feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to discuss your online marketing plans with you.

You can contact Brendan here