Was 2004 ‘The Year of the Blog’?
New Oklahoma Law Practice Tips Weblog Launched
By Jim Calloway, Director, OBA Management Assistance Program

Do you know what a blog, or weblog, is? If so, count yourself among the most sophisticated of Internet users. Two surveys about weblogs were recently released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and one finding was that 62 percent of Internet users do not understand what a blog is. I hope that Oklahoma lawyers would have better appreciation of blogs, if for no other reason than my March 15, 2003 Oklahoma Bar Journal story titled “Of Blogs, Bloggers and Blawgs,” and the Web-only sidebar “Interview with the Bloggers.” You can find both stories under the article index of the Management Assistance Program part of www.okbar.org. Just pull down the menu.

This month we have launched a new weblog that we would like everyone to visit. It is called Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips and it is online at http://jimcalloway.typepad.com/lawpracticetips/ (There’s no www in this Web address.)

We hope you will visit the site and maybe bookmark this one as one of your favorites so you can easily return again. It will be another resource for Oklahoma lawyers (and all lawyers) to find more quickly information to improve their practices.

Weblogs are Internet sites, arranged chronologically, where one can quickly post their opinions and messages for the entire world to see. I mentioned several of the most well-known legal blogs in the article noted above. Blawgs is a combination of “law blog” into one word.

Merriam-Webster defines blog as “Blog - noun [short for weblog] (1999): a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.”

Merriam-Webster also named “blog” the number one word of the year 2004 based on online searches for words.

Even though the majority of Internet users may not have heard of them, 2004 was in many ways the year of the blog. According to the Pew studies, 8 million American adults say they have created blogs. Blog readership jumped 58 percent in 2004 and now stands at 27 percent of Internet users. Five percent of Internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online. Twelve percent of Internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs.

Bloggers from the front line of the Iraq war and on political topics during the election year gained significant audiences in 2004.

Why start a blog? There are probably as many reasons as there are bloggers. In my case, I hope to make more information about law practice management and technology available to a wider audience of Oklahoma lawyers. The fact that the rest of the world can read it as well comes as a bonus. I author a lot of posts on OBA-NET that I would like for many more of you to have the ability to read. I’m hoping that the blog may interest a few more of you in OBA-NET where the tips posted are not limited to just law practice management and technology, but come from a larger number of lawyers and cover lots of legal topics. In short, I am hoping to get information to more of you in a way that is easier for both of us.

More people are trying their hand at creating weblogs. According to an authoritative source, 23,000 new weblogs are created each day, or about one every three seconds.

There are now inexpensive ways for even the most technically unsophisticated to start their own blog. Two services that provide hosting, templates and support are Blogger and TypePad. I elected to use TypePad and am very pleased so far. I wanted a very simple look for my blog and building on TypePad’s templates allowed me to do that easily. Now that it is set up, it truly is as easy to make a post as to write an e-mail. As time permits, I may develop a more polished look, but my main concern is content.

And the cost is minor at less than $150 for the first year. Even less expensive plans are available.

Oklahoma Law Blogs

I’m not the first Oklahoma lawyer-blogger by any means.

An Oklahoma-based intellectual property blog is named PHOSITA. This is a rather clever name, obscure to many of us, but one that may strike a chord with IP lawyers. According to the weblog, “PHOSITA is a mythical person of ordinary skill in the art.” The address is www.okpatents.com/phosita. The weblog is sponsored by the Oklahoma City law firm of Dunlap, Codding & Rogers with Douglas Sorocco and Melody Wirz as the main bloggers.

Benefitsblog is published by an OBA member. Here is how the blog is self-described: “Welcome to Benefitsblog, a tax, benefits and ERISA law commentary and news filter written and maintained by B. Janell Grenier, Esq. Ms. Grenier is principal of the Law Office of B. Janell Grenier, a Philadelphia-area law firm. Areas of practice: employee benefits, ERISA, qualified retirement plans, executive compensation and ERISA fiduciary compliance.” She may be a Philadelphia lawyer, but she’s an OBA member and that makes her an “Okie blogger” as far as I’m concerned. Her blog is online at www.benefitscounsel.com/benefitsblog/.

The blog Direct Appeal contains summaries of recent federal criminal cases from the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. It is the publication of Oklahoma City attorney Russell Wheeler and is online at http://directappeal2.blogspot.com. He includes links to the complete opinions.

An out-of-state OBA member who prefers to remain anonymous blogs at http://res-ipsa.the-blinding-white-light.com. There is little focus on legal topics in this blog, just observations on life and local happenings.

Interestingly, one OBA member-blogger did not wish to have his blog address published in this article. His blog does not relate to law practice and he indicated he would rather “blog on in obscurity” with a selected audience of their friends, family and others reading his blog.

Reading Weblogs

If you use the Internet very much, you have probably already encountered your version of “so many Web sites, so little time.” Realistically, one is only going to regularly visit so many Web sites. There is just not enough time. So how do lawyers with an interest in many topics keep current with many weblogs? Well, they use something called a newsreader to capture the headlines and stories in a way that has best been described as “news that comes to you.”1 You do not have to have the slightest clue what RSS or XML does or means to use this method of getting the news. And, if you do, then according to the Pew survey, you’re in the exclusive group of only 5 percent of Internet users who do this.

Please understand that these newsreaders are not just for blogs. You can use them to get headlines from Yahoo News, The New York Times, Reuters, recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions from Cornell and many, many more news services.

There are many types of newsreaders. Let me quickly share several types with you and then go into more detail on the easy and free service I have recently started using.

Newsgator2 comes in an Outlook plug-in version for $29 (less with quantity purchases) with a free trial and now has a free online version.

FeedDemon3 is a free-standing application that doesn’t plug into or require other software. It is $29.95 and has a free trial.

RSS Reader4 is a free-standing application and is free.

For Mac users, we have Shrook 25 a free-standing application with a 30-day free trial and a $24.95 registration fee.

Pluck6 is an Internet Explorer plug-in that recently got a good review from PC Magazine. Those who do not want another piece of software should give this one a good look.

I have not yet personally reviewed any of the above products.

I’ve always used the Web-based services, and many of you who have set up a customized Web page like My Yahoo have done so, too, even if you did not know it.

Primarily I have used the Web-based free service My Detod7 which was developed by former OBA Manager of Information Systems Chad Williamson. You register for free and then configure a Web page that presents all of the headlines from all of the legal blogs and news services you wish. Then when you return to the site, it recognizes your cookies and you see your customized Web page (or did I tell Internet Explorer to remember my password? I forget.) I’ve had this one in my links for a long time.

Recently I subscribed to Bloglines.8 This service received very positive endorsement from a lot of people I respect and it is free. I now go to Bloglines and click on “my feed.” I get a list of every news service and blog I have selected to review9 with any unread items noted. If I wish I can get a display of all items, or those from last month, week or few hours.

Most of the time I can read everything in Bloglines without going to the weblog, but some weblog owners only send out their headlines and you have to click on the link to go to their site to read the posting.

In just one week, 27 people have already subscribed to my Law Practice Tips Blog through Bloglines.

It is so easy to add more newsfeeds with Bloglines. There is an “Easy Subscribe” button that can be added to the favorites of most common browsers. Then you just visit the blog you want and click on this button in your favorites. Bloglines then completes the needed technical information and all you have to do is click subscribe on the windows that appears to confirm your selection.

Conclusion

Congratulations for making it to the end of this article. Some of your fellow lawyers have no doubt dropped out along the way. I want to make one point. There are many complicated things about technology, but today’s subject is easy — much easier than most things lawyers have to master. Don’t forget to pay attention to my new Law Practice Tips blog in any event. But maybe you consider a using a newsreader to grab a lot of different types of news from the Internet easily and automatically to your desktop.

Author's Note: After this article went to press, I learned of one more OBA member blogger. James Graves has just started OK Blawg at http://okblawg.blogspot.com. He's going to focus on Oklahoma law, legal issues and politics.

1.”News That Comes To You,” Online Journalism Review, posted Jan. 23, 2003, modified Feb. 4, 2003. www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1043362624.php
2. www.newsgator.com/Home.aspx
3. www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/index.asp
4. www.rssreader.com/
5. www.fondantfancies.com/shrook/
6. www.pluck.com/
7. http://my.detod.com/
8. www.bloglines.com
9. The technical term is subscribed, but I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.

Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal January 15, 2005 - Vol. 76; No.2