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It’s great seeing the varied, thoughtful and lively responses to my request this week for opinions about “turnkey” and ghost-written weblogs. and about the marketing potential of lawyer weblogs. Folllow this thread for the original posting, “Does Your Weblog Attract Clients?”, and for comments by hands-on webloggers Carolyn Elefant, Ken Lammers, Kevin O’Keefe, Evan Schaeffer, Bryan Gates, Steve Minor, Matt Hommann, Martin Schwimmer, and Denise Howell, with (naturally) some replies from myself (one of which became its own post, “Selling the Appearance of Expertise”).
Special thanks to Denise for posting on this topic at Bag ‘n’ Baggage, to Carolyn for doing so at MyShingle, to Nancy at Stark County Law Library and Evan at Notes from the (Legal) Underground, and to Kevin Heller for highlighting the issue at Law Tech Advisor.
(04-16-04) Blawg.org weighed in today with a very positive blurb about LexBlog.
Update (04-16-04): Denise Howell and lexBlog‘s Kevin O’Keefe had an enlightening discussion yesterday evening in the comments section of Bag ‘n’ Baggage.
For example, Denise stated: “ I do think there are differences between weblogs and conventional web sites, and that while one can use the software however one likes, it’s missing the point (the point being an easy and fast way to communicate the site owner’s actual expertise) to pretend someone else’s blog posts are one’s own.”
Kevin replied: “The content that is licensed to the lawyer will be marked by copyright so as to make clear that the lawyer did not write it and in some cases, if the lawyer agrees, we can say such content is provided courtesy of or on the sponsorship of the lawyer or firm.“
Editor’s Note: Kevin’s point about making it clear “that the lawyer did not write” lexBlog-supplied content is important, and does not yet appear on the lexBlog website (after what I believe was a thorough search of everypage).
Please add your perspective on these issues, which we believe are important to the integrity and health of weblogs (as an art, craft, community and business) and to their marketing.
Update (04-22-04): I’m pleased to report that Kevin O’Keefe has re-written the lexBlog premium services page, removing a quotation from author Rebecca Blood, which we have noted was taken out of context (leaving out the importance of hands-on weblogging for achieving expertise and authority status), and which seemed to suggest that Ms. Blood endorsed lexBlog’s services.