October 17, 2004
autumn light
I lower the window
cover my child’s feet
the gossip
her yard fills
with leaves
one-breath pundit
It’s rare that I disagree with Bob Ambrogi, but I don’t buy his notion that lawyers will not continue their weblogs without the incentive of advertising revenues. (see our earlier post). Bob asks for comments, and Kevin O’Keefe and I responded; please join us. Update (Oct. 20, 2004): Bob Ambrogi has written a follow-up on this issue; my reply is here)
Dear President Bush: Please go over your Harvard Business School notes on externalities and unintended consequences. The White House should not be a Nuance-Free Zone.
Ms. Dowd said it well today: “America is awash in selective piety, situational moralists and cherry-picking absolutists. “
their children
never cry
never stop crying
[reprise, Aug. 25, 2004, for Dafur]
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I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to share a pair of haiku from Tom Painting‘s chapbook piano practice.
This is a response to Bob Ambrogi’s follow-up post on blogads:
Bob, You lawyer, you! You’ve just switched your argument from
Blawgers like Dennis Kennedy, Jerry Lawson, Carolyn Elephant, Denise Howell, and Glen Reynolds, as well as Kevin O’Keefe, have noted the many “benefits” from writing a topic-oriented weblog — a package of benefits that simply are not possible using “traditional forms of legal news services,” which carry far greater costs. Rebecca Blood says in The Weblog Handbook that weblogs build reputations quickly, allowing the individual editor to demonstrate his or her expertise and integrity.
As Instapundit Reynolds stresses, this content can then be presented as “the unedited voice of an individual” — fresh and spontaneous. And, with Comments and the tracking of posts, weblogging builds an interactive community that cannot be duplicated in traditional sources of legal news or scholarship. In addition, weblogs entail very little direct expenses that need to be recovered.
Lawyers who want to be known as experts in their field have, of course, often used methods that do not carry advertising or compensation — e.g., local CLE seminars, traditional law journals. And, lawyers who want to merely stay on top of their fields have never been able to do so in a way that also garners a large, worldwide, faithful audience, plus excellent search engine positioning, for a relatively small additional investment of time.
All this leads me to conclude that the possible advantages of editing a weblog — including being able to write and “publish” easily and quickly — will keep weblawging “viable” without having to resort to blogads (especially with a new generation of lawyers weaned on weblogs). Webloggers who use blogads want the income — a perfectly appropriate desire. But, it seems unlikely that the best weblogs are fueled by those revenues and would die without them.
Comment by David Giacalone — October 20, 2004 @ 9:39 am
This is a response to Bob Ambrogi’s follow-up post on blogads:
Bob, You lawyer, you! You’ve just switched your argument from
Blawgers like Dennis Kennedy, Jerry Lawson, Carolyn Elephant, Denise Howell, and Glen Reynolds, as well as Kevin O’Keefe, have noted the many “benefits” from writing a topic-oriented weblog — a package of benefits that simply are not possible using “traditional forms of legal news services,” which carry far greater costs. Rebecca Blood says in The Weblog Handbook that weblogs build reputations quickly, allowing the individual editor to demonstrate his or her expertise and integrity.
As Instapundit Reynolds stresses, this content can then be presented as “the unedited voice of an individual” — fresh and spontaneous. And, with Comments and the tracking of posts, weblogging builds an interactive community that cannot be duplicated in traditional sources of legal news or scholarship. In addition, weblogs entail very little direct expenses that need to be recovered.
Lawyers who want to be known as experts in their field have, of course, often used methods that do not carry advertising or compensation — e.g., local CLE seminars, traditional law journals. And, lawyers who want to merely stay on top of their fields have never been able to do so in a way that also garners a large, worldwide, faithful audience, plus excellent search engine positioning, for a relatively small additional investment of time.
All this leads me to conclude that the possible advantages of editing a weblog — including being able to write and “publish” easily and quickly — will keep weblawging “viable” without having to resort to blogads (especially with a new generation of lawyers weaned on weblogs). Webloggers who use blogads want the income — a perfectly appropriate desire. But, it seems unlikely that the best weblogs are fueled by those revenues and would die without them.
Comment by David Giacalone — October 20, 2004 @ 9:39 am