Miffed at Mark Hermann’s post about why Biglaw blogs are boring, Kevin O’Keefe, CEO of Lexblog and head cheerleader of the blawgosphere, tried to rip Mark a new one in his post at Real Lawyers Have Blogs. After noting that both he and his family are drug users (not that kind), Kevin points out that it doesn’t qualify him to blog about drugs. If he did, people would wonder what kind of drug user he was (now, that kind).
They’d be probably be right. I couldn’t expect folks to view me as a much of an authority on the subject.
But it’s never stopped Mark Hermann, a leading defense lawyer at Jones Day, with a particular expertise in pharmaceutical claims, from offering commentary on the effectiveness of law blogs on his Drug and Device Law Blog (excellent blog on that subject).
Sure, it’s a disingenuous argument, since Kevin’s in business to sell blogs to lawyers. At it happens, Kevin is extraordinarily knowledgeable about blogging and other webby-type stuff. But knowledge alone doesn’t make someone an honest broker. I also happen to know that Kevin is a huge advocate of substantive blogging rather than being a flagrant shill for business, both because it doesn’t work and because it’s a blight on the blawgosphere. It’s not like he’s going to refuse business because some law firm wants to blog badly, but Kevin has long advocated for good blogging as a way to keep his peeps happy and his business thriving.
In the comments to Kevin’s rant, I raised an issue that raised Kevin’s hackles, Blawgospheric Darwinism. After reiterating Hermann’s point that most blawgs are boring, I wrote:
In the comments to Kevin’s rant, I raised an issue that raised Kevin’s hackles, Blawgospheric Darwinism. After reiterating Hermann’s point that most blawgs are boring, I wrote:
And if they weren’t, there would be far too many blogs to read, and they would fail for lack of readers in any event. The reality is that no one reads 500 blogs a day and no one ever will, so they will focus on the handful of blogs that are informative and interesting and the rest will fall by the wayside. It blogospheric Darwinism, and there’s no argument you can make that will change this certainty.
Too much of anything is, well, too much. That covers the blawgosphere as well. Only the fittest will survive, not because the others are awful necessarily, but because we would be deluged with far more than we could absorb if every blawg that came down the pike was a winner. There would still be a natural vetting process, and people would still read only the few that capture their interest best.
Kevin, as expected, disagrees.
The chance we’ll see only a handful of law blogs because of what you describe as ‘blogospheric Darwinism’ makes as much sense as saying we’ll see the end of lawyers networking and building relationships with their target audience for client development. Lawyers, and more of them, are going use client development tools that work, blogs being one of them.I wasn’t sure how best to describe this response. A non-sequitur? A failed analogy? I settled on goofy, mostly because I like the word. Words I don’t like as much are “networking”, “building relationships” and “client development.” Those are marketing words, sufficiently familiar yet too vague to nail down. While a successful blawg, according to how one defines success, can serve some sort of “client development” type purpose, it’s hardly the equivalent of chatting up potential clients. But more to the point, the unsuccessful blog, defined (for the moment) as one that nobody reads because it’s boring, is like chatting up an empty room. You can call it networking, but it’s not going to bring anybody in the door.
The laws of nature apply to the blawgosphere, whether that’s good for Kevin’s business or not. I can appreciate that he wants to sell every lawyer out there a turnkey blog. I’m a capitalist too. But the notion that every blog can find an audience is sheer nonsense. Anybody can blog. Everybody can’t. There are going to be successes and failures in blawging as in every other endeavor, even if every potential blawger puts in the effort to create good content and makes the blawg interesting. There is a saturation point. There are diminishing returns. There is survival of the fittest.
Unless a time comes when the real world has so little to do that people can spend every waking minute reading blawg after blawg after blawg (and then some), there will be natural selection. The blawgs that people find most interesting, whether because of humor, thought-provocation or breathtaking brilliance, will have readers. The blawgs that are lacking in content, or just plain boring, will be digital ghost towns.
This isn’t an argument, Kevin. This is reality. And it doesn’t take a maven like you to figure out that this is how the blawgosphere works. Mark Hermann knows it. I know it. And you know it too, even though it doesn’t comport with the Lexblog line.
Update: The forces agin’ us have sought to recast the existence of good blawgs v. bad blawgs into a war between blogs whose primary purpose is to capture readers by being funny v. serious blogs. This rationalization is utterly nonsensical, and merits address since those who are now starting out in the blawgosphere shouldn’t be misled by this strawman argument.
I can’t think of a popular blawg whose purpose was to become popular, except maybe Above the Law, and whose goal was to use whatever means it could to attract readers. Rather, popularity was a by-product of the effort, passion, and, on occasion, humor. But some of the most popular and well-read blawgs around aren’t funny at all. Is SCOTUS Blog a laugh riot? Does My Shingle play to the crowds? Is Randazza geared to the mass market? Of course not.
What we see instead is the spin of bloggers who want to present a brave front despite the fact that they write, as do the rest of us, yet fail to engage an audience, so they claim that they are thrilled with the intimate success of their blog. If they are, that’s great. But as Mark Bennett points out in his Social Media Tyro Blog, there is one continuing theme that permeates blogs that fail to capture a readership as a by-product of its content: The purpose of blog is to market.
Those dissatisfied with their lack of readers try to attribute nefarious intent to those who, for whatever reason, have had some degree of success blawging, while simultaneously claiming that they’ve accomplished some dignified victory in their small but select readership. If you write something that people want to read, then you can’t stop them from reading. That people aren’t reading what you write doesn’t prove virtue.
If you want to write, then write. If people want to read what you write, they will. Cut the crap. Cut the spin. If no one is reading your blawg, the problem isn’t that others are trying to be “funny”. The problem is that people don’t find your blawg sufficiently interesting to spend time there. That’s Blawgospheric Darwinism, and no amount of spin is going to change it.
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Seems to me that the refutation for biglaw lawyers don’t blawg well is here is a list of great biglawyer blawgs, with some specific examples of great entries. In reading over Mr. O’Keefe’s post, I saw a short list, but a quick look at the blawgs he referenced didn’t show me anything that impressed or amused. That’s either because I missed the good stuff, or, not being in the trade, I, err, saw some of the good stuff, but missed it.
Moving on . . .
There is a compromise between “anybody can blog but not everybody can,” which might go something like, “there’s ample audience, right now, for lots more good blogs, and the more that there are, the more audience there might be.” Not as snappy, granted, but I think it’s true. If I’m right, that doesn’t mean that the endpoint can be everybody (or even everybody with a law license) can be successful (for whatever definition of success they choose) with blogging or blawging, but just like, as with evolution, there are lots of niches available.
Sorry for the obviousness, but that’s all I got on a Sunday morning, after only three cups of coffee.
On your first point, bear in mind that Hermann’s starting point was the absence of Biglaw blawgs from the ABA list, which is one awful metric to begin with. Who cares which blawgs amuse Molly and Ed, and who made them the arbiters of worthiness. On the other hand, Kevin proved Hermann’s point within his own stable of blogs by his lackluster showing. I don’t say this to demean any blawg, but it stands or falls on its own.
Other metrics might well prove the point better. How many find their way into Blawg Review? How many links are there from sources outside Lexblog? After all, Kevin does a “best of Lexblog” post every few days to give his clients links. Why do they not get links on their own? Again, quantitative evidence rather than anecdotal and vague definitions of “success”.
As for the ever-expanding audience, I think you’re right to a point, but I bet that this is where diminshing returns comes into play. Double the readership, and the same blawgs that are well read today will be twice as well read then. There is always room for a brand new, terrific blawg, so it’s not like someone starting a blawg today is foreclosed from making a mark in the blawgosphere, but audience growth doesn’t mean that boring blawgs will somehow become more interesting and eventually find readers.
And the irony of this is that Kevin knows all of this, probably better than I do. He’s a very smart cookie. But he’s got a job to do, and do it he will.
I blog for my clients, not other lawyers. I just try to keep them up on the forest worth of new regulations and interpretations of same that fall on them every year. It’s more utilitarian than brilliant. They want short, concise entries. Maybe it doesn’t qualify as a blawg.
Jerri Lynn Ward may have nailed. You’re talking ‘blawgs’ meant to entertain other lawyers and draw large audiences.
While other lawyers and I are talking blogs and writing to offer insight and commentary to a small but targeted audience looking for such insight.
Come on, Kevin. You’re making me laugh too hard. You don’t want any of those nasty reader-people reading any of those insightful Lexblogs. Right. Thank the Lord they didn’t get named to that icky ABA blawgy list, where they would have been thrust into the limelight. That would have just been horrible if anybody other than the “small targeted audience” actually read one. Ewwwww.
Best thing about blogging & its particular social Dawinistic tendencies is that it is 99.99% free of implicit bias on all counts: BigLaw; Ivy League; race; nationality; class standing; gender, etc. It’s all about content and the usual markers of authority (Yale Law; Cravath partner; Order of the Coif; the amount in controversy in the matters you handle; etc.) are meaningless. Late capitalism turns out to be a Marxist dream with the means of production in the hands of the people.
I never realized you were such a radical. You shoulda been a Legal Rebel.
Scott! You don’t read my blog.
But seriously, Scarlett, I’ve been inside the beast & outside of it & though I’ve always preferred being the underdog, I’ve also been addicted, from time to time, to the property, power & prestige, as well as the resources, of BiggerLaw (I prob have at least 1 BigLaw firm in background but mostly I was second tier when not working for solos). Was rebel within the machine. Now I’m just trying to accomplish something useful before I head off to the assisted living facility with the rest of my g-g-generation.
I’ll be the guy in the next room.
. . . and we’ll both still be blogging . .