Justice @ 140 Characters?

“Philadelphia courts are putting news and announcements on Twitter, an online service that allows users to communicate in brief updates.” This is reported in the ABA Journal Newsletter this afternoon. Surprisingly, we find this arm of the justice system is not alone in making use of Twitter, one of my personal favorite online tools.

The ABA, in turn, issues a “Hat tip to the Wall Street Journal“, but that hardly seems fair to Law.com, the original reporting source for the Journal. The actual trackback should go to The Legal Intelligencer Blog, which is a Law.com content provider, and to reporter Amaris Elliott-Engel.

So, what’s the point of setting this particular record straight? Marketing. The ABA tips to the Wall Street Journal because it is a credible source, but also to get the credit of the link back to the WSJ blog. The link trading strategy raises the SEO profile of both. And, possibly, the goodwill generated in the exchange will gain the ABA a tiny bit of leverage for its next news item’s distribution. Why do that? Because the Wall Street Journal is such a credible source. So this is media relations in the blogsphere. It’s cheaper than lunch, but not as private.