When I received the email this morning from my buddy, the TV news talking guy, it was clearly not to be. He asked me to do color commentary on Ben Brafman’s strategy of putting Plaxico Burress into the grand jury to testify. He needed some background about what it all meant, the rules, the crime, the sentence. That was easy enough, but I was just too busy to go on air.
I called a friend of mine to ask him if he wanted to do it, but he was out of the office. Either he was too busy or he’s not taking my calls anymore. Either way, he wasn’t going to work.
So I decided to try an experiment. I twitted.
Now this would have been a pretty easy gig, it being a CPW3 and there being absolutely no defense on the facts. Sure, there was a Heller implication, but that wasn’t on the table today. So here is an opportunity for someone to get themselves on a network in New York City to talk about Plax. Yet not a single response.
This caused me to take a look at my followers, who at this moment in time number 573 after twitter’s vetting of spammers the other day. What did I see?
One wants me to look at her XXX pictures. Another has cheap airfares. A third tells me he’s a rainmaker of some sort, who follows twice as many people as follow him. A few people who have something to do with SEO. Then there are some who look to be lawyers.
Who are you people? Why have you followed me? I have almost 600 people following me, and how many could care less about what I have to twit. Not a soul there who cares a whit about what I was twitting. It went to the girl with the XXX photos. The rainmaker guy. Do they want to read my twits? I don’t think they do. I don’t think they follow me because they are interested in the same things as me. I think they want something from me. What could it be?
Whenever there’s a challenge to the efficacy of twitter, people post comments about community building, networking, and other meaningless marketing jargon and concepts artfully designed to sound as if it’s important and substantial. It’s so routine that I would expect the response to be straight out of Bangalore, all prepackaged and none bearing a resemblance to the use of English with which I’m familiar.
I am fully prepared to accept that twitter is working just great for all these business folks who have thousands of people dying to learn about their latest adventure in sales. It sounds remarkably like a commercial to me, and I’ve never been fond of commercials, so I don’t follow them. But I assume it must work for someone, or all these people wouldn’t be so excited about it. They must be thought leaders, which makes me thought leaderless.
So if there are almost 600 people in my room, but not one interested in what I’m twitting, then why am I doing this? And who are these people taking up space in my twitter room, giving me the impression that they want to read my twits when they aren’t really interested in me at all?
It seems that there might be a few lawyers, most likely within my particular niche, who would think that I might be a good person to follow. Maybe they do, and there’s no room for them with all the women with XXX pictures of themselves crowding the door. Maybe they got tired of the crowds and all left and followed someone more important than me. Maybe they aren’t really on twitter at all.
But not one person responded to my twit about the Plax commentary. Not one lawyer made a peep. In fairness, I checked the woman with the XXX pictures to show me. You never know. She could have a strong interest in criminal law.
I called a friend of mine to ask him if he wanted to do it, but he was out of the office. Either he was too busy or he’s not taking my calls anymore. Either way, he wasn’t going to work.
So I decided to try an experiment. I twitted.
Any Manhattan criminal defense lawyer want to do commentary on Plaxico Burress grand jury testimony today? DM me.Hear that? Shhh. Listen closely. That, dear readers, is the sound of silence. No response. Nothing. Dead, perfect silence.
Now this would have been a pretty easy gig, it being a CPW3 and there being absolutely no defense on the facts. Sure, there was a Heller implication, but that wasn’t on the table today. So here is an opportunity for someone to get themselves on a network in New York City to talk about Plax. Yet not a single response.
This caused me to take a look at my followers, who at this moment in time number 573 after twitter’s vetting of spammers the other day. What did I see?
One wants me to look at her XXX pictures. Another has cheap airfares. A third tells me he’s a rainmaker of some sort, who follows twice as many people as follow him. A few people who have something to do with SEO. Then there are some who look to be lawyers.
Who are you people? Why have you followed me? I have almost 600 people following me, and how many could care less about what I have to twit. Not a soul there who cares a whit about what I was twitting. It went to the girl with the XXX photos. The rainmaker guy. Do they want to read my twits? I don’t think they do. I don’t think they follow me because they are interested in the same things as me. I think they want something from me. What could it be?
Whenever there’s a challenge to the efficacy of twitter, people post comments about community building, networking, and other meaningless marketing jargon and concepts artfully designed to sound as if it’s important and substantial. It’s so routine that I would expect the response to be straight out of Bangalore, all prepackaged and none bearing a resemblance to the use of English with which I’m familiar.
I am fully prepared to accept that twitter is working just great for all these business folks who have thousands of people dying to learn about their latest adventure in sales. It sounds remarkably like a commercial to me, and I’ve never been fond of commercials, so I don’t follow them. But I assume it must work for someone, or all these people wouldn’t be so excited about it. They must be thought leaders, which makes me thought leaderless.
So if there are almost 600 people in my room, but not one interested in what I’m twitting, then why am I doing this? And who are these people taking up space in my twitter room, giving me the impression that they want to read my twits when they aren’t really interested in me at all?
It seems that there might be a few lawyers, most likely within my particular niche, who would think that I might be a good person to follow. Maybe they do, and there’s no room for them with all the women with XXX pictures of themselves crowding the door. Maybe they got tired of the crowds and all left and followed someone more important than me. Maybe they aren’t really on twitter at all.
But not one person responded to my twit about the Plax commentary. Not one lawyer made a peep. In fairness, I checked the woman with the XXX pictures to show me. You never know. She could have a strong interest in criminal law.
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I’m sorry, did you say something?
(That Twitter thingie probably works best for people who others actually want to follow b/c they are in the public eye…celebrities…and people care for some odd reason what they have to say. But I still can’t see much value for you and I.)
I saw that message this morning, and thought it actually seemed interesting. My problem is that I’m not a criminal defense lawyer, don’t hang in Manhattan, and am 3 time zones away.
I would be happy to do it for the next interesting GJ hearing, if you’ll relax your standards and throw in some airfare.
Just so you know, I’m available to judge the next Iron Chef contest. If anybody asks.
I twit with the guys, which is fun, and send around some retwits when it’s something really good. But this whole community/networking thing just seems to be a goof. There’s a community of millions of sellers looking for buyers. with the occasional sincere woman who just wants people to look at her XXX pictures.
Scott… I really am sorry. I was up at 3.30 am this morning in London and I would have enjoyed nothing more than going on US tv to talk about something I know absolutely nothing about. Unfortunately – it would appear – I was out on the balcony of apartment doing Smokedo exercises when you tweeted and then I went to a meeting.
I am available to tlak sensibly, of course, about XXXX pictures and I shall call an expert witness Geeklawyer to add a bit of serious expertise.
I am, however, pleased that you did your best to use Twitter for an honourable and serious purpose. I would not wish you to make too much a habit of this – we have to play mind games with Geeklawyer daily – and time, as we both know, is short.
Best, as always
Charon (or Mike SP now that Hull is on the warpath with anonymity)
People follow you on Twitter not because they care about what you say; but because they want you to care about what they say.
I saw it as well, but have the same issue as Bryan. I love the SJ blog, but don’t practice crim law. Don’t rule Twitter out on this once anecdote. I regularly tweet out press opportunities for lawyers and get responses on only about 25% of them. Timing, subject matter, etc – you’re not always going to get a hit. And a lot of lawyers are leery of talking to the press.
But I promise – any time you twit about press/speaking ops re M&A, internet law or legal ethics, you’ll at least get a response from me.
The XXX girl was the only one interested, besides you of course, in the fact that Martindale Hubbell charges to post the AV rating.
I think many of the lawyers on twitter, are LINO’s
Well, Twitter is pretty useful to me, but probably not in the same way that you guys are trying to find it useful.
Oh, and while I did see your tweet, I’m afraid I wasn’t able to help with that.
Sorry.
I tried to push the M-H issue for you, but it didn’t have a great deal of interest here either. Only about 35k hits. Sorry.
I think most lawyers on twitter either arent rated, paid the money, or would never talk back to the marketing Gods
Very well said.
I think most lawyers on twitter are busy checking their followers for the XXX woman.
in reply to who reads you,I am one,just looking for the mindset of lawyers to some degree. I sent you my story and I read early your comments on people placing a group of lawyers in a best top ad.I found one and he did a somewhat appeal for my son,after his 4 issuers,he wrote request to be removed.he was late filling and he didn’t even tell the ct. the truth. I found him on Va.Top 100 Lawyers ad, I am so disappointed in him and the fact that he called after presenting evidence that my son’s appeal was frivolous.he is part of the lawyers who don’t take their jobs serious enough for their clients.If not that I have friends that are good honest lawyers,I would be very angry.yet now I see room for the courts to start to look closly at these lawyers when they are before them with cases like my son.here in Va. there is a issure of mistrust for lawyers and now I know why.Jeri Rose
I was interested in the M-H issue, but I didn’t have much to say about it. After M-H told me it was impossible to get an AV rating without first practicing for ten years, I quit listening and forever banished from my head the thought of listing myself or my firm there. Maybe I’ll change my mind at some point in the future (maybe when I can get an AV rating) and get all fired up about everybody’s posts on the subject.
That’s very selfish, Matthew. Must it always be about you. What about Tannebaum? Does he ever get a turn?
As an age-required, card-carrying-member of the Slackoisie, it must always be about me. I like Tannebaum’s blogs a lot, so maybe I’ll give him an AV rating free of charge on the new site I want to start, laywerswhoworkforfreeanddoaterrriblejob.com. Don’t check it out yet, I’m waiting on some work-life-balance people to make sure the lawyers I employ will all be home by 5pm every weekday.
Your membership in the slackoisie has been revoked for excessive effort. Either stop working so hard or your going to be forced to wear seersucker suits, garters and a boater.