Skip to content

Is LexisNexis’ approach to blogs backwards?

LexisNexis has teamed with up Newstex to deliver blog content to the legal industry, among other professions.

Blog content is delivered via a product they call ‘Blogs on Demand.’ Presumably, LexisNexis customers pay a fee to get this blog content as well as other news and information.

The number of law blogs included in ‘Blogs on Demand’ is very limited. Per a press release on ‘Blogs on Demand,’ LexisNexis and Newstex ‘hand select’ what they label as premier, expert, and influential blogs in their aggregation of blog content.

In over a year since Nextext has been providing an aggregation of law blogs to LexisNexis, the two companies have determined that only 35 law blogs meet their standards. Maybe there are more, but that’s all Newstex is displaying.

The idea of blogs is to let readers decide what blog content is of value and to consume that content for free on a newsreader – whether the content be individual blogs or keywords/key phrases in blog posts. Picking out 2% of law blogs and saying here, this blog is good enough to read is like throwing up fish to fishermen on the side of a stream who are fishing for a different type of fish.

Understandably, most lawyers don’t understand blog consumption yet. But the answer is not to dummy down blog consumption, something that’s revolutionizing news consumption. The answer is to harness the latest technology and teach lawyers how to use it.

Compare LexisNexis approach to law blogs with that of Justia’s, an innovative start-up, brought to you by the co-founder and former CEO of FindLaw. Justia has identified 1,792 legal blogs in 54 Categories in BlawgSearch their law blog search. Users may then subscribe for free to an individual blog feed or a feed of the category’s blog posts.

To me, Justia’s approach is a look to the future. Free and open consumption of blog content. LexisNexis’ approach to blogs is backwards. Hand selected limited number of blogs, the content of which is packaged for sale to subscribers.

Is the LexisNexis – Newstex way of value to blog publishers and readers? I’d be curious as to your thoughts and the thoughts of LexisNexis and Newstex leaders.

Technorati Tags: ,

Posted in: