This Monday marked the release of BlawgWorld 2007, an eBook featuring the best posts from “77 of the most influential blawgs.” I’m very honored that WisBlawg was selected for inclusion again this year.
I have to admit, though, that I until today, I didn’t really see the point of BlawgWorld – of gathering tiny snapshots of blawgs into an eBook. That’s why I read with interest Robert Ambrogi’s “BlawgWorld 2007: I Still Don’t Get It” post over at Law.com. Ambrogi echoed my thoughts:
But the premise of this book is that is serves as the best way for lawyers to discover legal blogs and choose the ones they might regularly read. I still don’t see how it does that. Myself, I am able to evaluate a blog only by reading several postings over a period of time.
But then I read Ross Kodner’s comment to Ambrogi’s post and I finally understood the value of BlawgWorld:
What I find is that the majority of lawyers still barely know what a blog is, no less subscribe to multiple blogs and actually learn from all the valuable content that’s out there. So the point I think you didn’t bring up is that the 77 essays – cherry-picked by their authors to represent self-perceived “best of” content – present a tremendous amount of useful information that thousands of lawyers and their staff will read and benefit from.
I still have the sense that some bloggers are still so caught up in the mechanism of blogging and being part of the blawging world that it’s easy to forget what I personally think is the only thing that matters: education.
Education – Bingo! So BlawgWorld is all about educating non-blogging legal professionals about blogs. What are they?; What do they have to offer?; Which ones match my interests? Hopefully, then, some of these readers will be intrigued enough to venture out into the blogosphere. As a someone who has devoted a lot of effort to educating legal professionals about blogs, I feel almost embarrassed that I didn’t get it before now.
So, if you haven’t already looked at BlawgWorld 2007, I highly recommend it. If you’re new to blogs, it will introduce them in an easy to use eBook format. And, if you’re a blog expert, you may still find a few new ones that you’d like to read.
BlawgWorld is completely free to download – no registration hassles. I warn you that it is quite large and will take a while to download. You can also watch the press conference video which consists of three parts: (1) a behind the scenes look at what makes this eBook noteworthy, (2) a guided tour of the eBook and its features, and (3) a Q&A session with those who attended the press conference.