Blah-Blah-Blawg. It's hard to read the legal trade press these days without an article stuck in your face about law blogs a/k/a blawgs. There may be as many as 500 already with more being added every day (only somewhat offset by a modest burn-out rate resulting in constructive abandonment, which Darwinian trend we expect to accelerate and, eventually, overtake the growth curve). Here's what you need to know: blogs are a simple, inexpensive way for anyone to have a web site.
Everything old is new again. Everyone who thinks that blogs are a radically new disruptive force may wish to consider predecessors ... diaries, soap boxes, pamphlets, journal articles, op eds, letters to the editor, talk radio. OK, it's on the web; that's different. As evidenced by the popularity of reality TV, we've devolved into a nation of exhibitionists and voyeurs (see also, Rome before the fall). And the nexus is ... blogging. (We exaggerate for effect.)
Reductio ad blogsurdum. Now, there are some who would like to confer socio-cultural breakthrough status upon blogs -- blogging is a democratizing force ... then-therefore, blogging is inherently good ... and, by extension, if you don't already have your own blawg or, at the very least, aren't actively reading a bunch of blawgs then, too bad you slacker-Luddite-fascist. Set that aside -- it's a dead-end discussion; and besides, planet Earth is calling us home. The law of large numbers applies here in spades: if all judges, attorneys, clerks, paralegals, suppliers have their own blawgs, who's going to read them?
Truth: Most blawgs have marginal utility for most of us. Like personal journals, blogging can hold many positive benefits for the blogger -- writing improves critical thinking and writing skills; blogs provide an outlet for creative expression; blogging can be cathartic; and, blogging can facilitate social connectivity ... with reciprocal benefits for blog readers. Having said that ...
If you strip away the personal, social and artistic aspects of blogging (how you pursue leisure, personal development and/or redemption is beyond the scope of this article), and you look at blawgs strictly through the lens of facilitating relevant knowledge transfer that can be leveraged in your day job, most blawgs are not particularly helpful. (Shallow? We prefer to think of such an orientation as disciplined and focused but we answer to all names ....)
Our filters. We are primarily interested in relevant news and authoritative commentary delivered in a timely, clear and professional manner -- if it's well written and occasionally entertaining, that's a Lucky Strike bonus. But wait, you say, that's not blogging. To which we reply ... now we're getting somewhere.
Since our focus is EDD, beyond developments in electronic discovery per se, we are also interested in news and commentary in related areas including, but not limited to: legal technology; storage and search technology; corporate governance and compliance (esp. Sarbox); securities law; law firm management; general legal developments; political, legislative and regulatory; knowledge management, intellectual property; privacy; cybrary science.
We said authoritative so ... we don't regularly read law student blawgs or blawgs by junior jetsons -- generally, we only read content written by people with a few stripes on their sleeves. Are there exceptions? Of course.
Timely means that, as a rule, we don't deal with blawg content that we cannot subscribe to via RSS feed (more on this below -- it's not that painful and there are alternatives).
Essential Tools. Unless your day job resulted from a patronage or nepotism appointment, no one has time to visit 50 web sites everyday ... without substantial help, that is. The keys are filtering and scanning. So here's the skinny on 3 key tools ...
RSS ... stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and is a method for distributing subscribed content on the Net -- rather than going to each blawg site, the blawgs you want will come to you. To accomplish this requires installing a small-footprint client software application on your computer (think of this as the equivalent of the digital cable box on your TV that enables you to tune in specific channels). Most of these news aggregators enable you to quickly scan headlines and/or brief article abstracts -- if you are interested in the article, click on its link to read; if not, just keep scanning (think of this as channel surfing); many news aggregators also provide key-word filtering and real-time alerts. There are a number of free news aggregators and the $30 ones are available as trialware. (You can learn more about RSS and news aggregators here.)
Daily Whirl ... is a web site that displays headline links from 29 of the EDDix 50 listed below (list annotated to reflect same), plus others that are not on our list -- you can customize the page so that you only view the blawg sites you choose. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
Email NewsLetter Subscriptions ... 14 of the EDDix 50 will email you their headlines (list annotated to reflect same). Look for this number to increase substantially as blawgers get tired of other blawgers and look to expand their meaningful reach.
The EDDix 50 ... Everyone knows that opinions are like lawyers -- everybody has one and, in the end, we are not exceptional. Here's what we're reading and what we think about what we're reading and you're entitled to have a lawyer too. There is no question that we have overlooked some excellent blawg resources ... and, that we have included one or more that you will find less than useful.
[Miscellany ... we did not, for example, include a review of UTR which we reviewed separately here -- a rather randy legal blawg we find a total howl. And, to demonstrate that we may be mean but not mean-spirited, we did not include a review of LawPundit -- though Mr. EDDix is offering a $25 personal check for anyone who can tell us who played the role of Andis Kaulins in Raiders of the Lost Ark ... actually, we would settle for a cogent explanation of megaliths.]
Where on earth did the EDDix 50 come from? This brief article describes our selection criteria, what we really think about the whole bLAWg thing and why the EDDix 50 are different.
Comments ... The EDDix 50 ... bLAWgs & Blogs & What We Read
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