eDJ Group Releases Ground-Breaking Report on Social Media in eDiscovery

AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwire - Oct 16, 2012) - Companies can no longer claim ignorance when it comes to managing and preserving social media content for compliance and litigation purposes. That's the premise of "Collection and Preservation of Social Media," the latest report in the "eDiscovery and the Cloud" series from eDJ Group, a leading eDiscovery analyst and consulting firm and parent company of eDiscovery Journal. The new report -- the first of its kind -- is a unique, comprehensive resource for corporations attempting to mitigate the many risks presented by the rapidly growing popularity of web-based tools for online sharing, networking and collaboration in the workplace, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

While the widespread use of these tools in the workplace presents challenges for legal and information governance professionals, the integration of social media activity into everyday business practice has gained broad acceptance. Although little prescription exists in terms of regulatory rules and case law, the courts are making it increasingly clear that companies are responsible for the collection and preservation of social media content when conducting eDiscovery.

"Social media presents formidable information governance and eDiscovery challenges due to the diversity of data types and metadata, the unprecedented volumes of data, and the complex questions it raises about privacy and the ability to comply with the terms of use established by social media publishers," said Barry Murphy, co-founder and analyst of eDJ Group. "eDJ Group's new report is a complete and authoritative guide on the topic, giving companies the essential information they need to address these challenges now and put the right policies, processes and tools in place to prevent social media eDiscovery nightmares down the road."

Sections of the new report cover emerging rules and case law, side-by-side comparisons of the privacy and consumer protection policies of major social media publishers, and the importance of establishing authenticity in defensible collection and preservation. A variety of methods for collecting and preserving social media are discussed, including web crawling, screen shots, proxy methods, application programming interfaces (APIs) offered by major publishers and publisher-specific methods. The report also presents a detailed look at 26 vendors in today's eDiscovery marketplace that offer products and services related to social media content.

"Collection and Preservation of Social Media" concludes with specific recommendations to help companies establish sound information governance policies that ensure reasonable efforts are made to collect and preserve social media content as necessary, but also allow employees to use social media when appropriate.

"Social media is the next email -- a collaboration platform that grows so quickly that companies really struggle to manage it," said Murphy. "Instead of falling behind and repeating the mistakes many of us made with email a decade ago, companies need to plan social media governance strategies now."

The report is now available via eDJ Group's research engine and eDiscovery technology/service comparator, the eDiscovery Matrix (www.ediscoverymatrix.com). For more information about research licenses and access to this report, please contact Jason Velasco (jason@edjgroupinc.com).

About eDJ Group, Inc.
eDJ Group is the only "working analyst" firm covering the eDiscovery and Information Governance industry. eDJ Group offers unbiased information and pragmatic advice, based on years of experience and proven industry best practices. Whether you are researching a technology or service solution with the eDiscoveryMatrix, conducting an eDiscovery Bootcamp or finding the right expertise to answer your specific questions, eDJ Group is the source for all eDiscovery professionals. eDJ Group is also the parent company for the eDiscoveryJournal. For more information about eDJ Group, go to http://edjgroupinc.com/.