Not surprisingly, when it comes to the vastness of the internet, the media likes to focus on the new: new technologies, new phenomena, new dangers, new ways to fritter away time, new knee-jerk reactions by large businesses. Newness is also great for consultants and people involved in business development: new initiatives to be launched, new budgets to be created and new corporate policies to be devised.
Clearly, online PR, marketing and recruitment are vital for most businesses. However, just because such systems have become commonplace does not mean lawyers should not be casting their questioning eyes over the hype to make sure their efforts are only applied to the bits that will be productive. And there is much to be questioned about the business value of hyped elements such as blogs, virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life) and social networking sites (e.g. Facebook and MySpace).
