You’ll notice in the sidebar is a “Feed” button. This links to a standard format RSS file that allows you to view the latest headlines from the blog in a desktop reader or other web application that supports RSS. There’s an increasing number of other useful feeds you can access, enabling you to review headlines from all your favourite sites, only clicking through to the web when a topic interests you. Full details in my article.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2004.
The popular Emplaw portal, now under the management of the ‘serial Scottish entrepreneur’ Russell Shepherd, went live with a fresh site without any fanfare on 1 May. At this stage the changes are largely presentational and ‘positional’; the underlying content and functions remain the same. The site now has 3 entry points, for Employee, Employer or Professional, the profile selected determining the view of the site. Employees and employers gain free access to the 4,500 plus fact cards on employment law and the Find-a-Lawyer directory of employment lawyers. Professional users must register (even to view the free fact cards) and can take advantage of a 30-day free trial of the full subscription service which includes access to commentary, case summaries and other research tools. Any employment lawyer can now have a free listing in the Find-a-Lawyer directory; entries enhanced with web and email links being chargeable. New features are expected to be implemented in the Autumn.
The European Parliament’s office in the UK exists to provide information to the public, the media, government, regional agencies and the business community about the role and activities of the Parliament itself and the European Union more generally. It arranges briefings and seminars, participates in exhibitions, responds to enquiries, facilitates contacts with MEPs, provides speakers, and produces and distributes a range of publications and videos. It maintains a library and reading room which are open to the public.
If you are curious or just plain baffled about the European elections due to be held in June 2004, you can learn more at a web site launched by the UK office of the European Parliament: Europe Counts. The site includes lists of candidates for each constituency, an EU jargon buster, and a reminder-to-vote service, as well as a game allowing visitors to test their knowledge in a trivia quiz.
Since it was decided to launch a single currency in Europe, numerous internet sites dealing with the euro have been set up by individuals, institutions, companies, etc. In order to keep this internet memory of the euro alive, the Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission has decided to store all these documents – whether merely informative, in favour of or against the euro currency – in an electronic archival resource, Euro-Archives, which aims to make all points of view on the euro accessible to the widest possible audience.
The European Judicial Network in civil and commercial matters contains a large quantity of information about the Member States, Community law, European law and various aspects of civil and commercial law.
The European Judicial Atlas in Civil Matters provides access to information relevant on judicial co-operation in civil matters. Includes names and addresses of all courts in the Member States competent in civil and commercial matters (courts of first instance, court or appeals, etc.) and geographical areas in which they have jurisdiction; fillable online forms, with the facilities to change the language of the form once filled in so that the person receiving it can read it in his own language, and to transmit the forms electronically.
Intendance Ltd has just published the results of its 2004 survey of solicitors firm websites, which follows a similar survey of barristers websites published last month. The sites of 100 firms of solicitors and 100 barristers chambers were reviewed and scores awarded in three categories: content, usability (ease of finding and extracting information), and design (clarity of text, colour and the use of images). The winner amongst the solicitors was Coller-Bristow with 91%, and amongst the barristers, Hardwicke Building with 88%, the lowest scores being around 20%.
Intendance’s sampling method is not given. However, as all the solicitors firms surveyed have 20 or more fee earners, the sample represents approximately 10% of the top 1,000 or so firms. Of the barristers chambers, only 4 in the survey had less than 10 tenants.
One of the most significant findings was that 13 of the solicitors firms and 5 of the barristers chambers had no website at all (or one under construction only). Free pdf copies of the reports are available from Intendance. As well as reporting results, there are also useful pointers to good website design. However, a couple of comments under the Usability heading (ease of finding the website) dent our confidence:
- “Each website was assessed on its appearance on – or absence from – the first page of … Google”. What does this mean? What search term was used and how could this possibly be a useful comparitor amongst firms that a) have different names and b) do different work?
- “Only 35 websites had adequate meta-tags on their homepage”. It’s true that the meta Description tag is important as it is displayed by many search engines as part of the results. However, the usefulness of the meta Keyword tag in influencing results did not last long after 1997; experience showed it to be much abused and a veritable spam magnet; most search engines consequently stopped indexing its content.
You cannot fail to have noted that Google is floating its shares in a rather unconventional manner and expects to raise a rather mind-googling $2.7 billion. The unorthodox prospectus has drawn criticism, nay derision, from conventional quarters. For an alternative view, see John Naughton’s column in the Observer. He notes that:
“The ‘proposed maximum aggregate offering price’ … $2.718281828 billion … is a very special number … ‘e’ – the base of natural logarithm. With the possible exception of pi, e is the most important constant in mathematics since it appears in every calculation involving limits and derivatives. If Larry Page and Sergey Brin could sneak this mathematical in-joke past their lawyers, then theirs was going to be no ordinary prospectus.”
UK investors sould not be too miffed that they are being excluded. Jack Schofield in Guardian Online notes that:
“at perhaps 25 times sales and 250 times current profits, the IPO looks like a way for Google insiders to get rich, not investors.”
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