Law X.0

Voting Underway for Computer Weekly's IT Blog Awards

Cast your vote for the best IT blogs in the UK for Computer Weekly's 2008 blog awards contest. Blog categories are listed below. Voting will run until July 31st. The winners will be announced in August. [JH]

• CIO / IT director blogs
• Company blogs
• IT law and governance
• IT lifestyle
• IT project management
• IT security
• Programming and technical
• Public sector IT
• Web 2.0 and business
• Wireless and mobile

Free Webinar Today: Getting the Most Out of Social Media Using ShareThis Plug-In

Tuesday, June 10th at 1 pm Pacific
Space limited; reserve your spot by emailing webinar AT sixapart.com

From the announcement: Join us for an informative session about current trends in sharing your blog content around the web.  With so many choices out there, we'll discuss how bloggers can extend their reach quickly and effectively.  TypePad's Andy Wibbels and guests from ShareThis will host this informative talk about on how to get the most out of social media using the ShareThis plug-in.

Selection Bias in Web Surveys and the Use of Propensity Scores

The most obvious potential drawback of web surveys is that they may not be representative of the population of interest because the sub-population with access to Internet is quite specific. In Selection Bias in Web Surveys and the Use of Propensity Scores (SSRN) (RAND Working Paper No. WR-279) the authors investigate propensity scores as a method for dealing with selection bias in web surveys.

Findings. The propensity adjustment works well for many but not all variables investigated. For example, they find that correcting on the basis of socio-economic status by using education level and personal income is not enough to get a representative estimate of stock ownership. This casts some doubt on the common procedure to use a few basic variables to blindly correct for selectivity in convenience samples drawn over the Internet. Alternatives include providing non-Internet users with access to the Web or conducting web surveys in the context of mixed mode surveys.

See also: Are 'Webographic' or Attitudinal Questions Useful for Adjusting Estimates from Web Surveys Using Propensity Scoring?  (SSRN)(RAND Working Paper Series No. WR-506). [JH]

Save the Date for Free May 21 Blogging Webinar

"The Power of Blogging" is a free webinar on May 21st at 1 pm EDT by TypePad and Bella Web Design for businesses that want to learn how blogging can set one's company apart by generating leads and communicating with present and future clients. The webinar hosts will be Desiree Scales, CEO of Bella Web Design, and Andy Wibbels, TypePad team member and author of the book Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging. Register here. [JH]

Graphic Design: The New Basics

Need to go beyond cut-and-paste graphic design for blogs and websites? Check out Graphic Design: The New Basics (PAPress, May 1, 2008) by Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips. In The New Basics, the authors refocus design instruction on the study of the fundamentals of form in a critical, rigorous way informed by contemporary media, theory, and software systems.  From the blurb:

Through visual demonstrations and concise commentary, The New Basics shows students and professionals how to build interest and complexity around simple relationships between formal elements of two-dimensional design such as point, line, plane, scale, hierarchy, layers, and transparency. The New Basics explains the key concepts of visual language that inform any work of design—from a logo or letterhead to a complex web site. It takes a fresh approach to design instruction by emphasizing visually intensive, form-based thinking in a manner that is in tune with the latest developments in contemporary media, theory, art, and technology. Colorful, compact, and clearly written, The New Basics is the new indispensable resource for anyone seeking a smart, inspiring introduction to graphic design and destined to become the standard reference work in design education.

Also recently published by PAPress, preeminent graphic designer Abbott Miller's Open Book: Design and Content. [JH]

Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society

Well worth reading. Make no mistake: this is no run-of-the-mill exposé of media bias, but a sophisticated analysis of the ways and means by which lies and distortions do so well in today's fractured, cynical media world. —Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University

True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society
by Farhad Manjoo

List Price: $25.95 
Publisher: Wiley (March 17, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0470050101
ISBN-13: 978-0470050101

Book Description: In True Enough, Manjoo presents findings from psychology, sociology, political science, and economics to show how new technologies are prompting the cultural ascendancy of belief over fact. In an age of talk radio, cable TV, and the Internet—the blog- and YouTube-addled million-channel media universe—it is no longer necessary for any of us to confront notions that contradict what we "know" to be true. Stephen Colbert calls this "truthiness"—when something feels true without any evidence that it is. Here Manjoo probes the cognitive basis of truthiness, exploring how biases push both liberals and conservatives to select and interpret news in a way that accords with their personal versions of "reality."

Why has punditry lately overtaken news, with so many media outlets pushing partisan agendas instead of information? Why do lies seem to linger so long in the cultural subconscious even after they've been thoroughly discredited? And why, when more people than ever before are documenting the truth with laptops and digital cameras, does fact-free spin and propagandaseem to work so well? True Enough explores leading controversies of national politics, foreign affairs, science, and business, explaining how Americans have begun to organize themselves into echo chambers that harbor diametrically different facts—not merely opinions—from those of the larger culture. We meet people who espouse far-out interpretations of reality—about everything from the history of John Kerry's time in Vietnam to the integrity of the 2004 election to the truth about 9/11—and dig into the mechanism by which they came to hold those beliefs.

2008 Webby Award Winners Announced

Here's the complete list. [RJ]

10 Most Disruptive Technologies Through 2012

According to Gardner analysts, here are the most disruptive technologies through 2012. Details on eWeek. [JH]

1. Multicore and Hybrid Servers
2. Virtualization
3. Enterprise Social Software
4. Cloud Computing
5. Mashups
6. User Interface
7. Ubiquitous Computing
8. Context-Aware Computing
9. Augmented Reality
10. Semantic Technologies

Top 20 Most Profitable Tech Companies in 2007

Courtesy of Fortune's annual ranking. Here's the top five.

Company	Profit in Billions (% Change Over 2006)	Revenue in Billions (% Change Over 2006)	Profits as Percent of Revenue
Microsoft	$14.1 (11.6%)	$51.1 (15.4%)	27.5%
IBM	$10.4 (9.8%)	$98.7 (8.1%)	10.5%
Cisco Systems	$7.3 (31.4%)	$34.9 (22.6%)	21.0%
Hewlett-Packard	$7.2 (17.2% )	$104.2 (13.8%)	7.0%
Intel	$6.9 (38.3%)	$38.4 (8.3)	18.2%

Other Notables: Google (7th place), Apple (8th), Dell (10th), Nvidia (17th) and Adoble (18th).

Two less recognizable names: MEMC Electronic Materials (16th), manufacturer of polysilicon wafers used to make solar cells and Lam Research (20th), flash memory chip maker. [JH]

Berners-Lee Addresses WWW2008 in Beijing

Check out Paul Miller's coverage on his The Semantic Web blog. WWW2008 Conference website. [JH]

Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online

Guest blogging on Mashable, Andy Beal outlines ten tactics that could prevent your company suffering its own online reputation meltdown. [RJ]

This is sure to become the definitive guide for members of any company or group who want to join and shape the often brutally honest conversation across social media about their brands, products, and people. — Tom Giles, Editor, Technology & Science, BusinessWeek.com

Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online
by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss

List Price: $29.99
Publisher: Sybex (March 4, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0470190825
ISBN-13: 978-0470190821

Book Description: Radically Transparent is the complete resource for monitoring, managing, building, and repairing online reputations. The comprehensive guide provides a full-featured reputation monitoring and management system. It includes practical, step-by-step instruction in four skills for personal reputation construction: public relations, search engine optimization, research, and online content creation. It explains how to apply these skills to create online content for blogs, social networking sites, and text communication (e-mail, text messaging, and so forth). The book provides background information, research results, anecdotal evidence, case studies, and practical strategies. It also emphasizes Internet research techniques for identifying and monitoring online identities and features exercises that reinforce key discussions.

Part I explores this new era of transparency and its implications for companies and individuals. Part II reveals the best online reputation management tools and techniques. It explains the what, when, and how of reputation monitoring and explores how to leverage social media to build positive buzz, use search engines to your advantage, and communicate effectively using everything from emails and IMs to blogs and social networks. Part III shows how to track, manage, and repair your online reputation. It explores various tracking methods, provides strategies and techniques when reputation repair is in order, and concludes with a concrete, seven-step action plan for successful and ongoing online reputation management.

Using step-by-step instruction and tested techniques, the expert authors unveil a detailed blueprint for building, managing, monitoring, and repairing your reputation. They detail important public relations, search engine optimization, research, and online content creation strategies and provide a seven-step action plan so that you can develop the skills necessary to monitor and manage your reputation. You'll learn how to:

• Navigate the new rules of engagement in a transparent world
• Define who you are and develop your personal or corporate brand
• Create positive PR buzz with your online content
• Gain visibility in web search results and harness SEO tools
• Understand the pros and cons of e-mail before you hit "Send"
• Use the latest Internet tracking methods and understand how information spreads online
• Apply solid strategies for reputation repair when things go wrong

Best Legal Website of 2008 Competition

Recent winners of the Best Legal Website Competition

2007: carbonhouse, inc. for Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice 2006: Thomson-FindLaw for Yanowitch Law, P.A. 2005: Frost Brown Todd LLC 2004: Saturno Design LLC for Pierce Atwood - Attorneys at Law 2003: Pepper Hamilton LLP 2002: Lane Powell Spears Lubersky LLP

The Web Marketing Association announces the call for entries for its 12th annual international WebAward Competition for websites. The Association will once again name the Best Legal Website of 2008.

The WebAwards is "the standards-defining competition that sets benchmarks for 96 industries," including legal web sites, based on the seven criteria of a successful website. The deadline for legal websites to enter to be judged is May 31, 2008.

Best websites are selected by judges who review the entered websites using the seven criteria below:

• Design
• Ease of use
• Copywriting
• Interactivity
• Use of technology
• Innovation
• Content

Competition guidelines and entry form at the WebAwards 2008 site. [JH]

Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 Starts Today

The four-day Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 starts today [website]. Check out the Annotated Schedule of Programs and the offical Web 2.0 Expo Blog. Information Week will be providing on-going coverage of the event here. Follow news and blog coverage: Google News Search | Google Blog Search [JH]

Feedback Sought on Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers

W3C's Mobile Web Test Suites Working Group has released a stable version of its Web Compatibility Test for Mobile Browsers, and has sent an invitation to the community to share reports of browser support and other feedback on the test itself.

Check out Web Worker Daily for a survey of mobile web browsers featured on various smartphones. [JH]

Just Released, Managing Online Forums

Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards
by Patrick O'Keefe

List Price: $24.00
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: AMACOM (April 10, 2008)
ISBN-10: 081440197X
ISBN-13: 978-0814401972 

Book Description (from the book's website): In this book, Patrick O’Keefe, owner of the iFroggy Network, shares his experiences in a straight forward, honest fashion and shows readers how to make the right decisions about every aspect of their forums, including:

• Creating an organizational structure
• Designing and launching their community
• Deciding on user options like avatars and private messaging
• Promoting and attracting members
• Utilizing technology to their benefit
• Developing and enforcing guidelines
• Choosing and managing moderators
• Shutting down users who disrupt and harm the community
• Involving their users and keeping the site interesting and inviting
• Generating revenue

What is talked about this book is not hypothetical - it consists of in use, battle-tested theories and solutions, making it so that when you must deal with these issues on your forums, you will be better equipped. Real life examples are cited throughout, including the actual user guidelines, staff member guidelines and more, from real communities.

Pay-Per-View Webcasts of Funeral Services

And now for something a bit offbeat...

Wesley Music is webcasting funeral services in Britain so mourners can pay their last prespects via the Internet. The pay-per-viewer cost is about $150. Story on MSNBC. Hat tip to Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog. [JH]

Passwords and the Fifth Amendment

Passwords and the Fifth Amendment is a very interesting March 11, 2008 New York Law Journal article By Ken Strutin (registration required). He discusses the leading cases concerning wall safes and alike and cites to some recent cases involving passwords. Details on Adjunct Law Prof Blog. [JH]

POD Publishers Outraged by Amazon's New Restrictions

"Some Print on Demand (POD) publishers are privately screaming 'Monopoly!' while others are seething with rage over startling phone conversations they're having with Amazon/BookSurge representatives. Why isn't anybody talking about it openly? Because they're afraid - very, very afraid..." That's how POD publisher Angela Hoy starts her recent post when she broke the story on Writers Weekly (check out the supplied links for POD industry reaction and commentary). Why? Because BookSurge, Amazon’s print-on-demand subsidiary, has told POD publishers that unless their titles are printed by BookSurge, the buy buttons on Amazon for their titles will be disabled. Apparently the buy buttons already have been disabled for some POD publishing houses.

Details on Law Librarian Blog. [JH]

Free Press's Ben Scott Profiled in Washington Post

Check out Cecilia Kang's article, Net Neutrality's Quiet Crusader, in today's Washington Post. [JH]

Save the Date for Singularity Web Conference

Singularity may be the largest online web conference in the world when it takes place. Organized by Aral Balkan, a self-described Internet junkie whose blog is a must-read for all Internet junkies, the plans call for an online conference involving 100 of the world’s top web visionaries, developers, designers, thought leaders, and celebrities for three days of talks over multiple tracks October 24-26th, 2008. Check out Singularity's website for details. [JH]

Here's a recent interview with Aral Balkan about Singularity:

Twitter in Plain English

Once again, the creative folks at Commoncraft have produced a great "Paperworks Video" explaining a popular IT phenomenon. This time it is Twitter. [JH]

Google White Paper on Business Communications Trends, Priorities, and Best Practices

From the executive summary of the 2008 Annual Google Communications Intelligence Report (Feb. 2008):

At the end of 2007, Google conducted an annual online survey of messaging professionals. Providing insight into the major communications trends in the past year as well as the pressing issues and concerns for the coming one, this survey is the result of 575 global interviews with CEOs, CIOs, and CTOs in large, multinational enterprises as well as small organizations. This report summarizes the key findings of the survey, including detailed statistical analysis of the key trends in business communications in 2007 and how these trends translate into priorities for business communications professionals in the year ahead. Following the summary of the research findings, the report touches on Google’s expectations for the coming year as well as defines some best practices in business communication to help organizations address the expected challenges in the industry in 2008.

Download google0802whitepaper.pdf [JH]

The Untold iPhone Story

Check out Fred Vogelstein’s The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry in Wired or Valleywag's condensed version of Vogelstein's article in The Real Untold Story of the iPhone. [JH]

Fighting the War on File Sharing

Fighting the War on File Sharing
by Aernout Schmidt, Wilfred Dolfsma and Wim Keuvelaar

List Price: $117.00
Hardcover: 230 pages
Publisher: Asser Press; 1 edition (2007)
ISBN-10: 9067042382
ISBN-13: 978-9067042383

Book Description: Fighting the War on File Sharing aims at a multi-faceted understanding of why peer-to-peer services currently fail to gain their full potential in our society. The analysis focuses on music-file sharing. Three parts of the book (The Morality of Regulation by Architecture, The Economics of Peer-to-Peer in Music, and Intellectual Property Rights for Music File Sharing) investigate the positions and opinions that individual disciplines can offer. As these analyses yield partial solutions, the final part of the book provides an institutional framework and applies it to produce new and crisp results on a tough, otherwise almost comprehensively researched subject. The framework recognizes the influence of outstanding work from law and information technology (Lessig), political anthropology (Douglas, Geertz, Smits), new institutional economics (Coase, North, Greif) and jurisprudence (Fuller, Bobbitt, Tamanaha). Its application allows a glimpse of veritable multidisciplinary co-operation concerning the perplexities of regulating the regularities in our social behaviour.

About the Authors: Professor Doctor A. H. J. Schmidt is Director of eLaw(at)Leiden, Centre for Law in the Information Society, Leiden University. Wilfred Dolfsma is an an Associate Professor at the Utrecht School of Economics and a Professorial Fellow at Maastricht University (UNU-MERIT). Wim Keuvelaar is managing director of Sdu E-Grant.

Electronic Privacy Information Center's 2007 International Privacy Ranking

From the Report's overview:

Each year since 1997, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have undertaken what has now become the most comprehensive survey of global privacy ever published. The most recent report published in 2007 is probably the most comprehensive single volume report published in the human rights field. The report runs over 1,100 pages and includes 6,000 footnotes. More than 200 experts from around the world have provided materials and commentary. The participants range from eminent privacy scholars to high-level officials charged with safeguarding constitutional freedoms in their countries. Academics, human rights advocates, journalists and researchers provided reports, insight, documents and advice.

The new 2007 global rankings extend the survey to 47 countries (from the original 37) and, for the first time, provide an opportunity to assess trends.

The intention behind this project is two-fold. First, we hope to recognize countries in which privacy protection and respect for privacy is nurtured. This is done in the hope that others can learn from their example. Second we intend to identify countries in which governments and privacy regulators have failed to create a healthy privacy environment. The aim is not to humiliate the worst ranking nations, but to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain a healthy respect for privacy within a secure and fully functional democracy.

[JH]

Rosenberg's Dreaming in Code

Dreaming in Code has been out for about a year but I only started reading it last week. Rosenberg is doing for software what Tracy Kidde did for telling the story of the development of a minicomputer in his now classic Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award work, The Soul of a New Machine. I recommend both books. [JH]

Dreaming in Code:
Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software
Scott Rosenberg

List Price: $25.95
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Crown (January 16, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1400082463
ISBN-13: 978-1400082469

Book Description: Scott Rosenberg spent three years following a group of men and women--led by Lotus 1-2-3 creator Mitch Kapor--who are developing a novel personal information manager named Chandler (as in Raymond) meant to challenge market-leader Microsoft Outlook with elegant innovations. Their goal: to build something truly different--an application versatile enough to allow you to take emails, appointments, and notes and effortlessly transform one into another, organizing and displaying them as you please. The team included legendary programmer Andy Hertzfeld, author of much of the original Macintosh operating system, and Lou Montulli, the Netscape cofounder who invented the Web browser "cookie." Chandler's first manager, Michael Toy, dreamed of speedy releases but found himself stuck in quicksand; its second, Katie Parlante, resolutely held together a crew of gifted but stubborn programmers--including John Anderson, a philosophical coder who frequently found himself chasing elusive bugs down "ratholes," and Andi Vajda, a database expert who once hacked open his high school's minicomputer and found his future inside.

Their story takes us through a maze of dead ends and exhilarating breakthroughs as they and their colleagues wrestle not only with the abstraction of code but with the unpredictability of human behavior, especially their own. Along the way, we encounter black holes, turtles, snakes, dragons, axe-sharpening, and yak-shaving--and take a guided tour through the theories and methods, both brilliant and misguided, that litter the history of software development, from the famous "mythical man-month" to Extreme Programming.

Not just for technophiles but for anyone captivated by the drama of invention, Dreaming in Code offers a window into both the information age and the workings of the human mind.

About the Author: Scott Rosenberg is an award-winning journalist and the cofounder of Salon.com, where he served as technology editor, then managing editor, and is now vice president for new projects. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wired, The San Francisco Examiner, and other publications.

Start 2008 Off by Joining the Blogosphere

screencastcentral is producing a series of "Blogging for Beginners" videos using WordPress. They're hosted on Crackle. Here's the first video and here's a Crackle search that will retrieve them all. [JH]

Blogs Don't Have to be Ugly

Check out Adii's My 53 Top Blog Designs of 2007 for some innovative and attractive blog design work. [JH]

Just Released: Blogging Heroes

Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers
by Michael A. Banks

List Price: $24.95
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Wiley (December 10, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0470197390
ISBN-13: 978-0470197394

Book Description: With over 100 million blogs out there, how do a small number of bloggers set themselves apart from the pack? That's the question that drove Michael A. Banks to go out an sit down with thirty of the best-known blogger and try to find out what makes their blogs influential, ground-breaking, and singularly successful. These thirty bloggers have been featured in Wired magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Popular Science, and on CNN, NPR, and MSBNC. For some it's an addictive hobby, for others it's how they make a living. But for all of them, it's their passion.

Sounds interesting in a Christmas gift sort of way. [JH]

Bloggers interviewed in Blogging Heroes include:

• Dave Taylor The Intuitive Life Business Blog
• Chris Anderson The Long Tail
• Gina Trapani Lifehacker
• Ina Steiner AuctionBytes
• Mary Jo Foley All About Microsoft
• Dave Rothman TeleRead
• Frank Warren PostSecret
• Mike Masnick Techdirt
• Mark Frauenfelder BoingBoing.net
• Robert Scoble Scobleizer
• Peter Rojas Engadget
• John Neff Autoblog
• Ken Fisher Ars Technica
• Deborah Petersen Life in the Fast Lane
• Joel Comm JoelComm.com
• Brian Lam Gizmodo
• Kristin Darguzas ParentDish
• Chris Grant Joystiq
• Scott McNulty The Unofficial Apple Weblog
• Philipp Lenssen Google Blogoscoped
• Brad Hill Weblogs, Inc.
• Steve Rubel Micro Persuasion
• Rebecca Lieb ClickZ
• Deidre Woollard Luxist
• Gary Lee An Internet Marketing Web Site
• Richard MacManus Read/WriteWeb
• Eric T. Internet Duct Tape
• Victor Agreda DIY Life
• Steve Garfield Steve Garfield's Video Blog
• Grant Robertson Download Squad

Verizon Opening Its Wireless Network

Flying in the face of the traditional wireless business model, Verizon has announced that it is opening its network (somewhat) to devices other than cell phones tied to the company. Details on Tech Law Prof Blog. [JH]

Cell Phones Powered by Google's Android

Google just released a software development kit for Android, its open-source mobile software platform. So what does it look like? Take a look at c|net's Google Android slide show. [JH]

CALI Selects Law Professors to Produce Criminal Procedure Lessions

From the press reslease: CALI has selected a group of law professors for the CALI Criminal Procedure Fellowship. The fellowship will produce computer-based legal education materials in Criminal Procedure. From a talented and diverse group of law professor applicants, CALI selected these five:

• Edwin J. Butterfoss, Professor of Law, Hamline University School of Law
• Steven L. Chanenson, Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law
• Tom Lininger, Associate Professor of Law, University of Oregon School of Law
• Raneta Lawson Mack, Professor of Law, Creighton University School of Law
• David M. Siegel, Professor of Law, New England School of Law

[JH]

Site Meter Blog

Site Meter, the company we use for traffic stats on all Law Professor Blogs Network blogs and considered by many, myself included, to set the industry standard has a blog. If you are not using Site Meter, perhaps you should. Check out the free and fee-based services the Company offers: website and  blog.

Yes, this is a personal endorsement. The Site Meter crew runs a great operation and always responds to my questions intelligently and promptly. [JH]

Legal Conference Watch

The Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington School of Law, has launched Legal Conference Watch, a current awareness blog covering conferences of interest to law school faculty. Snips from the About page:

If [your institution is] hosting or [if you} know about an upcoming conference that would interest law school faculty, please send us a link or some basic information. We’d like to help you get the word out. Write to whisner [at] u [dot] washington [dot] edu.

We do not plan to include continuing legal education programs or local bar association meetings

Listings will be limited to programs that are at least a day long. Many afternoon lectures or lunchtime meetings are undoubtedly very interesting, but not worth traveling far to attend.

We will list more conferences in the U.S. and Canada than elsewhere, although we will add foreign conferences selectively. (A German conference about German law will probably not make the cut; a conference in Germany that is about international or comparative law and is advertised for speakers and participants around the world will.)

Hat tip to Mary Whisner, Reference Librarian, Gallagher Law Library. [JH]

Bloggers Wanted for 2007 Survey of the LIS Blogosphere

In August of 2005, Meredith Farkas conducted a survey of LIS bloggers to get some sense of the demographic characteristics of the LIS blogosphere. She's doing it again and soliciting blogger participation! Details (and results from the 2005 survey).

If you are a library and information science professional with a blog, please fill out the survey. [JH]

AALL's Second Annual Bloggers Meeting Set for July 16

It's time to mark your calendars for the AALL's Second Annual Bloggers Get Together!

Time: 5-6 p.m.
Date: Monday, July 16th
Place: Gordon Biersch. 200 Poydras. 504-552-2739. Brewpub. Platters. - at the foot of Poydras - across from Harrah's casino and also across from the Hilton.  http://www.gordonbiersch.com (Dutch Treat).

Come share your ideas and meet the other law librarian bloggers! Open to all bloggers and potential bloggers.

RSVP: Last year we had over 30 participants so we are anticipating a good crowd this year. For a headcount, please RSVP Barbara Fullerton by Friday, July 6th to bfullerton@10kwizard.com.

Hat tip to Barbara Fullerton for organizing this meeting. [JH]

Law Professor Blogs Network Announces Launch of New Blogs

Paul Caron and I are delighted to announce the launch of several new blogs as part of the Law Professor Blogs Network:

• Food Law Prof Blog, edited by Donna Byrne (William Mitchell);
• Law Blog Metrics (formerly Ian Best's 3L Epiphany), edited by Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati);
• Reproductive Rights Prof Blog, edited by Caitlin Borgmann (CUNY); and
• Securities Law Prof Blog, edited by Barbara Black (Cincinnati)

In addition, our Antitrust Prof Blog has re-launched as Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog with Shubha Ghosh (SMU) and Daniel Sokol (Wisconsin) as co-editors.

If you would like to announce the launch of your new law blog, please email me using the "Email Your New Law Blog Announcement" link located in the left sidebar of this blog under the heading "New Law Blogs Alert" [JH]

3L Epiphany --> Law Blog Metrics

Dear readers,

I began this blog exactly one year ago today, in my last semester of law school.  I introduced 3L Epiphany and described my purposes for creating it in this post (Feb. 1, 2006). The next day I let it be known, in long-winded fashion, that my blog was an independent study project for which I would receive academic credit. One of my goals for 3L Epiphany was to lay a foundation for future law students to create legal blogs on a variety of topics and receive academic credit for them. I elaborated further on "blogging for credit" in this collection of posts.

I am pleased to announce that I am transferring 3L Epiphany to the Law Professer Blogs Network, run by Prof. Paul Caron (TaxProf Blog) and Joe Hodnicki (Law Librarian Blog). 3L Epiphany will now become "Law Blog Metrics," and Mr. Hodnicki will maintain and develop my legal blog projects that I conducted while I was in law school. These projects include the Taxonomy of Legal Blogs, and the collections of court cases and law review articles which cite legal blogs. The URL (http://3LEpiphany.typepad.com) will remain the same. Mr. Hodnicki will serve as the new editor, and may invite contributing editors in the future.

I am very grateful that 3L Epiphany will live on as part of the Law Professor Blogs Network. As the Founding Editor of Law Blog Metrics, I may post occasionally on relevant legal blog topics. However, now that I have a new job I will probably continue my blogging hiatus for a time, and perhaps indefinately. Fortunately I know that my blog is in very skilled and capable hands.

So with this announcement, 3L Epiphany comes to a close. I would like to thank all my readers from the past year who made blogging at 3L Epiphany such a rewarding experience. I would also like to thank Prof. Doug Berman (Sentencing Law & Policy) for being such a wonderful mentor and advisor, and the administration at Moritz Law School for allowing me to receive credit for my blog. And thanks again to Prof. Caron and Mr. Hodnicki for agreeing to transmogrify 3L Epiphany into Law Blog Metrics.

Please stay tuned for further details about the new blog.

Signing off, with warm regards,
Ian Best

The Future of 3L Epiphany

An announcement is coming soon, probably at the beginning of January. Stay tuned...

At Long Last, an Actual Job!

Just to let everyone know the good news: I’ve accepted a job offer from the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, and will start this Monday. The OLSC is basically a government agency that researches and drafts statutes, and provides other services to the Ohio General Assembly.

   

The post-graduate limbo is over. Finally, law school is appearing to be worth it.

A Bunch of Posts, Coming Soon

I've been on a temporary, self-imposed hiatus. This weekend I will unclog the bottleneck of accumulated posts. When it rains it pours, so stay tuned.

Resumption of 3L Epiphany

The Ohio Bar is over, and I suppose the less said about it the better. It was truly a grueling experience, and it's difficult to predict the results. I actually feel more confident about the essays than the Multistate. Anyway, it's over now, and I will find out my results...in late October.

So back to blogging. There's a tremendous amount of "catch up" to do, and my time is limited. I am in the middle of both job-seeking and moving to a new home (within Columbus). But I do plan to get back into the habit of daily blogging, and there is plenty of ground to cover:

• I have almost 100 legal blogs to add to my Taxonomy of Legal Blogs. My Open Invitation lists 35 legal blogs in the post itself, and has received 39 comments naming new blogs. I have also received several personal emails informing me of more.
• I have become aware of four new cases which cite legal blogs, and so this collection of cases will need to be updated.
• The new Nexus Journal (Vol. 11) is entirely about law and the blogosphere. The articles are available here.
• The August edition of Chicago Lawyer has an article entitled "Law Related Blogging Starting to See a Coming of Age." It is well worth reading, and is available via Northwestern University Law School here. The article mentions yours truly and several other legal bloggers.
• Based on the above article, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog had this to say:

  • [O]ur favorite example in the article involves one Ian Best. The recent law grad was able to get academic credit for his work on 3L Epiphany, a blog about, what else, the legal blogosphere. It seems to us that Mr. Best may offer a valuable lesson for any big-law associates struggling to meet their billable-hour requirements. Since work can be slow, firms often allow associates to “bill” non-revenue producing hours with such softer items as recruiting, professional development, and community work. Why not legal blogging? It strikes us that a well-crafted blog might have a decent chance of landing the occasional new client.

I expect that more law firms will eventually consider blogging to be an appropriate use of an associate's time, if done in a professional manner. A sophisticated legal blog can market a firm's expertise and attract potential clients, while maintaining the high level of insularity and discretion that a law firm culture requires. 

I should add, however, in the interests of pragmatic realism, that I will NOT be blogging if it becomes a hinderance to job-seeking. I can fully comprehend the reasons why law firms or government agencies would reject any blogging by their employees. If I am asked to discontinue blogging for the sake of receiving employment, I will do so. Professionalism requires a healthy understanding of priorities.

So my blogging at 3L Epiphany has resumed, and the next few weeks will clarify whether my participation in the legal blogosphere will continue. Please stay tuned...

Barcelona Bound!

I’m headed with my family to Barcelona, Spain for a vacation. I am purposely not bringing my computer, so this will be (among other things) a 10-day blogging hiatus. I will not be able to answer email or respond to comments during that time. No doubt I will also go through Internet withdrawal, but that’s a good thing.

   

I’m off to visit the land of Gaudi and Miro. I had thought about bringing George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia with me, but I wasn’t able to get it in time. Reading that might be a bit too intense anyway, if my main purpose is to recuperate from 3 years of law school.

   

The weather here in Columbus, Ohio, is currently 54°, cloudy and raining. In Barcelona it’s 70°, with a slight breeze coming in from the Mediterranean Sea. I will resume blogging if I decide to return…

Just FYI: Graduation and Summer Plans

For those readers who are interested, I will be graduating from law school tomorrow (Friday, May 12). Then I will go on a 10-day vacation with my family to Barcelona, Spain, where I will hopefully recuperate from 3 years of law school. If I decide to come back, I will then begin studying for the Ohio Bar in late May.

I do intend to continue blogging on 3L Epiphany, even though the semester has ended and my Independent Study credits have been earned (see the posts under Credit for Blogging?). I have several mini-projects I would like to carry out, and I will also be revising and updating my Taxonomy of Legal Blogs. But for the most part, blogging will be limited and sporadic during the summer months, until the Bar is over. I will do my best to post when I can.

When I first launched 3L Epiphany, I said the following: "Putting a blog out on the Internet is like being an actor in a solo-performance play, not knowing ahead of time – when the curtains are still closed – whether anyone is actually out there watching." I am surprised that although I haven't posted anything new in quite a while (due to exams), I still receive a steady flow of traffic to this site, usually more than 100 visitors a day. I am grateful that 3L Epiphany has attracted an audience, and that the critical reviews so far have been encouraging. I would like to thank all my readers for visiting 3L Epiphany throughout the semester, and I hope that this blog continues to have a beneficial impact on the legal community.

Webcast of Harvard Symposium

The Harvard Symposium will include a live webcast. Details here.

Two Major Blogging Events On the Horizon

There will be two major conferences on legal blogs in the month of April. The first is focused on blogs by lawyers, and the second is focused on blogs by law professors.

1. A conference on Blog Law and Blogging for Lawyers will be held on April 20-21, in San Francisco. Here is a list of sample topics from Dennis Crouch at Patently-O, who is a co-chair of the conference:

• Legal gray areas arising from the proliferation of Web logs
• The future of blogging -- a passing fad or here to stay?
• The extent to which bloggers qualify for the First Amendment protections afforded to journalists
• Content ownership and syndication issues
• Employment issues arising from blogging within corporations
• The latest in blogging technology, including audio and video feeds
• How to set up a blog for your law firm or make your current blog more effective
• How blogs differ from regular Web sites in generating traffic -- and business -- for your firm
• Ethics questions surrounding the blog as a law firm marketing tool
• An on-the-ground report from several law firm bloggers

2. A symposium on Bloggership: How Blogs are Transforming Legal Scholarship will be held on April 28 at Harvard Law School. Here is a list of topics, via Prof. Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog who helped organize the event: 

• Law Blogs as Legal Scholarship
• The Role of the Law Professor Blogger
• Law Blogs and the First Amendment
• The Many Faces of Law Professor Blogs

Both of these events demonstrate the extent to which blogs are transforming legal scholarship and practice. I will be attending the second but not the first. 

Two Major Blogging Events in Columbus

An important reminder to Columbus, Ohio bloggers and residents:

Howard Bashman, of How Appealing, is coming to Columbus. Mr. Bashman is considered to be the first appellate litigation blogger on the Internet. His blog is one of the most frequently visited and well-respected among the entire legal blogosphere.

First, Mr. Bashman wil