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The following review was published in New Law Journal Vol 152 No 7032 Friday, May 17 2002

We all want a web site that generates new business on autopilot. Is it possible? These four books may be able to put us on the right track.

Susan Singleton is a solicitor with her own successful practice specialising in IT law. Her Legal Guide To Online Business displays complete familiarity with the legal issues involved in running an online business. There are precedent forms covering terms and conditions of use of the web site, privacy policy statement, partnership agreement (to govern links between sites), online conditions of sale and even use of the Internet and e-mail by employees.

Mike Levy's Secrets of Successful Web Sites is written from the viewpoint of the freelance journalist who has many and various subjects to his credit. He goes back to basics and asks, Why do you need a web site? The answer, of course, lies in communication. Attract your customers first, make them want to stay at your web site and return later, find out from them what they want of you (and sell it to them?).

But where do we start? Checking out our competitors' sites is a good place. We're then led through the problems of web site design, web technology (not to be used just for the sake of it), whether to hire a professional (yes), and too many other things to mention. Surprisingly, search engines are dismissed because they are "corrupt and no longer work". So much for them, then. What about the pay-per-clicks?

Nevertheless, there is much in the way of useful advice and especially on potential traps to avoid in venturing online for the first time.

Gerald Newman gives us Online Marketing Strategies. He is an established trainer on web site topics and as Deputy Director of Communications at The Law Society, ran www.lawsociety.org.uk, a very successful site. Marketing objectives, he says, should determine the content and style of your site. So determine where you are now, where you want to be, and who are your target audience. Design your site around them. Make your site a helpful, one-stop information point, not restricted to just your product but covering related issues as well. For example, an accountant's site has a tax calculator on it.

Feedback forms let your audience communicate their thoughts to you, chat rooms and bulletin boards let them communicate with each other and, of course, online ordering facilities are essential if you are to have a real e-commerce site. But how do you get people to actually buy online? Well, you have to have the right product, of course, and you have to develop your customers' confidence.

The author takes us easily through several case studies to illustrate his argument, including the most phenomenal online success story - eBay. The first step is to select our expert. What questions should we ask him and what do we put in the contract? What about a domain name? Do we choose a dot-com or a dot-co.uk? What about the new domain name extensions? Should we use our firm name or go for a distinctive online name? What about cyber-squatting, typo-piracy and brand-bashing, and should we protect our domain name through trade marking?

Mr Newman does well to cover all this and aspects of security and the actual design of the site in so short a book.

Now for How To Make Money Online (that's why we've kept reading until now, isn't it?). It sounds promising enough, but remember that Dan Conaghan has a strictly corporate background. So it's not so much building a web site and marketing it profitably, it's creating an asset for selling on or getting listed on one of the UK stock markets.

As you might expect, he covers the shake-out of 2000-2001, why lastminute.com succeeded and boo.com failed. His remedy for making reluctant consumers eager to buy online revolves around security, building the site around the customer and keeping it simple. But the emphasis is very much on things that the big players engage in - B2B exchanges, online procurement and advertising, take-overs and mergers of online companies, not to mention online investing, share trading, spread betting - now there's how to make (or lose) money online.

If you're corporate minded, this is the book for you.

Philip Gegan
Solicitor and Internet Consultant

The following review was published in New Law Journal Vol 152 No 7042 Friday, July 26 2002

When something as hi-tech as information technology and the Internet meets something traditionally low-tech like the legal profession, something has to give.

For all its benefits, the Internet also brings with it a broad range of risks to legal practitioners, and it is these risks that Rupert Kendrick addresses. Communication might be easier, but so is the sending of an improper message by an employee. Ease of communication increases the risk of breach of confidentiality. Computerised databases and documentation bring the risk of theft or corruption of flies through viruses. Laptop computers containing sensitive information can be stolen.

Why are these risks difficult for us to handle? "Because the nature and use of Internet technologies introduces features that do not necessarily recognise the framework of traditional legal services."

The writer does well to keep control over a wide-ranging and technical subject matter. Dividing it into two parts, technology risks and legal compliance risks, he takes us on a guided tour of all the various nightmares awaiting us, if we are not careful, in cyber-space.

Here's an interesting point. If it takes ten minutes to download, customise and print out a document for a client, how much can you charge him, compared to the three hours of billable time it would have taken for the same result in pre-Internet days? And how do you make up the shortfall?

What's mentioned here is, of course, just skimming the surface, but to simply be aware of all these risks is a big stride towards dealing with them. Daunting as this prospect is, it can be done, and many firms are already well advanced. Although the author describes his book as a "primer", any practitioner reading it and implementing its recommendations will give his practice the best chance of surviving and thriving in the instant information age.

Philip Gegan
Solicitor and Internet Consultant

The following review was published in New Law Journal Vol 152 No 7050 Friday October 4 2002

Few of us, when we boot up our high spec, state-of-the-art, PCs, and load our favourite game (oops - business application) pause to think about the intellectual property rights of the person who wrote the software.

Actually, it's more complicated than that. Whereas a play or novel carries straightforward copyright belonging to the author, with software you have the person, A, who conceives the idea and tells B, the software house, to produce a working programme. B instructs C and D, who can be either independent programmers or employees of B, and who produce the code. C and D enlist the help of computer programmers on licence from E, and engage F, a graphics designer, to design the on-screen layout, and G, a technical author, to write the help files.

So who owns the copyright in the finished product? And for how long? And should a patent, which gives stronger protection but is more expensive, be applied for?

Richard Morgan and Kit Burden have produced a remarkably succinct book, aimed as much at non-lawyers within the software industry as at lawyers, which reveals how alarmingly complex this new area of the law can be. We are taken through the process of software production and marketing from recruiting staff and commissioning software to licensing the end product.

It can be a complex and tortuous path to take, and it's somewhat surprising that there have been so few decided cases that we can turn to for guidance. But at whatever stage your client asks for advice, this book will assist you in guiding him through the minefield.

Hopefully your client will involve you from the start (this does sometimes happen, I believe), in which case the precedents, from employment contracts to "Download Software Licence (Click-Wrap", will be invaluable.

Copyright © 2002-2008 Philip Gegan, Leicester, England.