How would you like to have clients calling you out of the blue?
The New York Times has reported that Google (who scared the Street yesterday) is testing a new ad service that allows search users to initiate a conversation:
Starting late last year, the site began showing green phone icons next to selected advertisements that appear with search results. When the icon is clicked, the user is prompted to enter his or her phone number. The phone will then ring, with the business on the other end of the line…
When I first saw this and wondered about legal applications, I thought mostly of lawyers looking for cases where a potential client is searching for “dog bite” or “slip-n-fall.” But what if some enterprising corporate lawyer or firm started buying search terms like “section 703(b) allocations” or “superfund de micromis buyouts.” In other words, search terms that would be more likely to be used by potential clients with money rather than by a young kid in his parents’ basement.
This Google capability could put more pressure on Thomson/West (findlaw.com) or LexisNexis (Martindale/lawyers.com) to figure out quickly what their lawyer search capabilities really want to be when they grow up.
On a related front, chronicle of web 2.0 TechCrunch reports (scroll down) that the start-up Ether is being launched tonight by Ingenio, who has already a leader in pay-per-call.
According to TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington (who is a lawyer, by the way), Ether would work like this:
Service providers set up an account by providing some personal information and a phone number that they would like to be called at. Any service that can be provided over the phone is a perfect match for Ether. “Sellers†set their price, from free to anything (on a per minute or per hour basis). They can tell Ether the hours they are willing to take calls. Every seller is issued a toll free phone number (with a dedicated extension), which forwards to their phone.
Robert Scoble wonders how people would use Ether. I think lawyers will use services like Ether (and Google) to find clients–or perhaps more accurately to have clients find them.
Lawyer and law firm advertising may never be the same.
Technorati tag: law2.0