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Net Q & A
Question of the Month: January 2003
What are "blogs" and why would a lawyers use one?
Answer
"Blogs," or "web logs" are web sites that operate like
chronologically ordered personal journals, frequently including links to, and
discussions of, other web sites. The most important blogs have become
influential, with
one
leading conservative crediting what he calls the "Blogosphere" as a leading
factor in making Trent Lott's comments a major issue, after they had been
pretty much ignored by the mainstream news media.
The blog of "Ernie the Attorney"
(AKA New Orleans lawyer
Ernest E. Svenson)
links to
50 practicing lawyer blogs. The term "blawgs"
has been coined to describe lawyer blogs. Law.com recently published
several articles on the subject in a section with the title
Who Let the Blogs Out?, and Bob Ambrogi suggested that 2002 was "the
year of the blog."
Do blogs make sense for lawyers? Maybe. They definitely have some features that show great potential as a marketing tool:
 | They make it much easier to update web sites, especially for those with no technical knowledge or time to acquire it. |
| As leading lawyer-blogger Rick Klau has pointed out, sophisticated search engines tend to give good blogs high rankings for search results. |
| Blog software makes it easier for those interested in particular topics to track them via blogs than on conventional web sites. Some blogs format content in XML, which can be distributed in as a standard called "RSS" and then manipulated by end users with programs called "news aggregators." |
Blogs were fairly exotic when Dennis
Kennedy and I discussed them in
one of our Internet Roundtable
columns two years ago. They have become enormously more popular, but my
overall assessment hasn't changed:
DK: "Blogs" (www.blogger.com) are my new favorite web phenomenon. In
essence, they allow you to put an ongoing web journal of your writings on
your web site, almost like a daily diary. If your site is designed to
accentuate your personality, a blog might be a fascinating tool to let you
easily put up opinions, idea and thoughts and get your audience to return on
a regular basis. Jerry, perhaps I've gone too far out with that idea?
JL: One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard on Internet marketing
for
law firms was from Greg Siskind: "There is no single road to success on the
Internet." I think blogs are a classic example of this fundamental truth.
For most lawyers, blogs would be a fiasco, possibly even dangerous. On the
other hand, for a few lawyers, they could be perfect.
|
Send us your questions. We'll select the best each month and answer it here. On request, questions will be edited to conceal the questioner's identity. |
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This page last revised: January 1, 2003.