I just got done reading a most interesting post on the techPresident site.  It turns out that the Library of Congress is going to begin archiving the Twitter stream.  The LOC views all of our random tweets as part of the new American History.  Just think, next to the Abraham Lincoln Papers and one of the most famous images of the Great Depression can now be found images of #Lolcats, locations sent from foursquare and endless amounts of misspelled and inaccurately punctuated meaningless rants.

(Photo credit: CNET Pulse)

When I first read the post, I was scratching my head and wondering what was really the point.  But ultimately, I think I get it.  While the vast amount of tweets are basically stupid in terms of content, it is a constantly updated stream of conciousness of America and a peek into what we as a nation are thinking and doing.  This is somewhat embarrassing, as a whole.  They say history is written by the victors.  In this scenario, history is written by the victors...and the losers, nerds, bimbos, you-name-it.  This is the real America.  It's a rather interesting and unique way of cataloguing us, but an authentic way. 

It's also interesting to note that ALL of the Twitter feed is being archived.  All those tweets you sent out eons ago are still there, just waiting to be logged by the LOC.  Given that you are reading this particular type of blog, I would imagine you are more than well aware that electronically stored information is never really gone (with some exceptions, of course, and if you make the effort to properly dispose of it) if you just know how to look for it.  But I would venture to guess that most people type it, tweet it and then think of it no more past a few a days.  For them, it's gone forever.  I'd be interested to see if anyone cries foul over this, though ultimately it wouldn't make a difference.  Tweets are public, the end.

So, next time you see @DRUNKHULK tweet about the following: UK SCIENTIST CREATE DESIGNER EMBRYO USE DNA OF MAN AND TWO WOMANS! DRUNK HULK NO KNOW ABOUT YOU! BUT THAT TOTALLY HOT!, you can feel good knowing it's being saved for posterity and that future generations will be able to share in our experience.

By Douglas J. Wood, Corporate Counsel. Article originally published on Jan. 15th by LTN News. 

We are in the middle of a communications revolution with the advent of the phenomena collectively referred to as "Social Media."

Everyone is familiar with the plethora of internet offerings -- Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, Yammer, and LinkedIn -- to name just a few. There are more than one hundred active social media sites with millions participating in conversations every minute of the day, all over the world. Multinational companies and their CEOs are blogging, populating their walls on Facebook, and tweeting. It's an epidemic.

Accompanying these social media platforms is a growing new vocabulary: "user-generated content," "podcasts," "advercasting," "vlogs," "RSS," "twitterjacking," and "astroturfing."

On the one hand, companies want to capture the attention of potential customers roaming the social media space. On the other hand, conversations in the blogosphere are largely uncontrollable, and raise a myriad of risks -- labor and employment, privacy and data security, defamation, intellectual property, attorney-client privilege, securities, trade secrets, advertising, marketing and promotion, regulated industries, product liability, and more.

All these conversations are breeding regulation and litigation. Social media can cause serious losses if not handled correctly.

The "Social Media Bible" defines social media as "... activities, practices and behaviors among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge, and opinions using conversational media."

The definition's two key focal points are "communities" and "conversational media." Communities can now be established on the internet by anyone who wants to gather with others who have similar interests or concerns. These communities number in the millions from every country in the world.

The conversational media used in these communities cross all platforms -- it can be audio in a live chat room, text in a Twitter tweet, pictures on Flickr, or video on YouTube. All this can be done for virtually no cost, making social media the most robust conversational media in history.

How should corporate counsel address the phenomenon?

Unlike in other areas, e.g, securities and intellectual property, it's difficult to find a specialist who can deal with all the social media platforms and their impact on the diverse operations of a large multinational corporation.

Yet the increasing evidence of real risks lurking in social media requires attention. This article suggests five things corporate counsel can address as first steps in understanding and dealing with social media and its risks.

1. Join in the conversation. It may not be comfortable, but open accounts with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Invite colleagues to be "friends," contacts, and "followers." Without joining the conversation, one can never really understand its impact and potential. Surf Facebook and YouTube. See who is there and engage in the conversation. Post comments. Submit reviews. Learn the game.

2. Monitor the conversation. As Bob Dylan put it, "the times they are a-changin'." What was said in the living room is now published on Facebook. What we do in private is now broadcast on YouTube. What employees talked about at the water cooler now appears as tweets on Twitter, or worse, goes viral across a myriad of social media platforms. And all of it memorialized in discoverable form. All of it available to millions with the simple press of "send."

While policies can be written (and they should be), it's critically important to monitor the conversation. Find out what your customers, competitors, and employees are saying. There are tools: sysomos.com, buzzstream.com, and Biz360.com -- and services: CustomScoop.com, EchoSonar.com, and SentimentMetrics.com -- available in the marketplace to help. By using these tools or services, counsel will get an idea of what is happening in social media. While none of the tools or services appears to cover 100 percent of the landscape, they are legitimate options.

3. Influence the conversation. Social media moves brand management into reputation management. Brand and reputation management have been intertwined historically -- and well before social media. McDonald's support of the Ronald McDonald Charities had nothing to do with the quality of its hamburgers. Yet through paid advertising and word of mouth (the earliest form of social media), those charitable activities unquestionably enhanced the goodwill associated with the McDonald's brand. But McDonald's-controlled advertising and word of mouth was largely local and non-viral, making it somewhat controllable and low risk. Social media has changed the playing field.

United Airlines broke a passenger's guitar. They handled his complaint through traditional procedures, eventually refusing to pay for repairs. The musician launched a scathing, but admittedly entertaining, video on YouTube making United look incompetent. To date, there have been nearly six million views of the video.

United responded through traditional means, issuing a press release that said, "We will fully investigate what regretfully happened."

But United didn't satisfy the disgruntled musician.

So along came another video attack on YouTube with more than a half-million views. And a third video is promised.

Worse, in a recent flight, United managed to lose the same musician's bags, an event that was reported to millions in the blogosphere. The story was a lead item on CNN's "Situation Room," reported by anchor Wolf Blitzer. According to the London press, United's stock value fell ten percent -- $180 million -- because of this flub.

While one can certainly question whether the London press reports are accurate, the fact remains that the video had a serious impact on United's equity. And to add insult to injury, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is championing the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act of 2009, citing the United debacle.

When two employees of Domino's Pizza posted a disgusting video on YouTube in which they adulterated the chain's food, Domino's management immediately responded via social media. In addition to reporting the video to the police, Domino's Pizza's CEO posted his own video, apologizing for what consumers saw and assuring them that such things were not condoned nor practiced at Domino's. It all made the "Today Show" and other media reports.

Both traditional media and the blogosphere applauded his open communication and willingness to engage in a conversation about the problem. Rather than seeing its brand value and reputation take a major blow, it survived the negative media and came out with an even more loyal customer base.

United mishandled the problem by applying traditional media responses and sound bites. Domino's handled the problem by engaging in the conversation. Public relations and crisis management have changed. As social media pioneer Erik Qualman put it, "A lot of companies say we're not going to do social [media] because we're concerned about letting go of the conversation, and what I argue is that's like an ostrich putting its head in the sand. You're not as powerful as you think. You're not going to enable social [media] to happen, it's happening without you so you might as well have a piece in the conversation and be part of the conversation."

4. Limit the conversation. Adopt a social media policy for both internal and external communications. But be careful to stay on strategy, don't ban what you can't stop, and keep in mind the basic rules of monitor, engage, and influence. Examples of what some companies have adopted can be found here. But don't just copy those efforts. There is no standard form and it's critical that companies not make the same mistake so many made with privacy policies in the early days of websites when changes in policies were nearly impossible or came at considerable cost.

5. Empower your social media guru. Social media present the rare opportunity to appoint someone just a few years out of law school as the point person on the issue. Today's law school graduates have lived in the social media space throughout college and law school. They understand it and know how to maneuver though it. Then monitor them!

Social media are powerful tools and ones that are becoming increasingly central to corporate communications at every level. But with them come new risks as conversations get too casual and typing too loose. Ignoring those risks is no longer an option.

Douglas J. Wood is a partner with Reed Smith, chair of its media & entertainment industry focus group, and editor of the firm's white paper on social media, "Network Interference: A Legal Guide to the Commercial Risks and Rewards of the Social Media Networking Phenomenon."

I'm calling it right here: The Pancake Defense!  For once, social media has been used to exculpate a person instead of condemning.

His Facebook Status Now? ‘Charges Dropped’

Where’s my pancakes, read Rodney Bradford’s Facebook page, in a message typed on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 11:49 a.m., from a computer in his father’s apartment in Harlem.

At the time, the sentence, written in indecipherable street slang, was just another navel-gazing, cryptic Facebook status update — words that were gobbledygook to anyone besides Mr. Bradford.

But when Mr. Bradford, a skinny, short 19-year-old resident of the Farragut Houses, was arrested the next day as a suspect in a robbery, the words took on a level of importance that no one in their wildest dreams — least of all Mr. Bradford — could have imagined. They became his alibi.

His defense lawyer, Robert Reuland, told a Brooklyn assistant district attorney, Lindsay Gerdes, about the Facebook entry, which was made at the time of the robbery. The district attorney subpoenaed Facebook to verify that the status update had actually been typed from a computer located at 71 West 118th Street in Harlem, as Mr. Bradford said. When that was confirmed, the charges were dropped.

“This is the first case that I’m aware of in which a Facebook update has been used as alibi evidence,” said John Browning, a lawyer and member of the Dallas Bar Association who studies social networking and the law. “We are going to see more of that because of how prevalent social networking has become.”

For the full article by DAMIANO BELTRAMI, please click here.