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Lawyer blogs – money makers & money savers for law firms

November 21, 2004

The Ann Arbor News ran a nice piece this week on how blogs are both making and saving money for businesses – making money as a marketing tool and saving money as a cost effective internal communication tool. Though the article does not cover lawyer blogs, law firms should be able to pick up a few good ideas from the article.

Here’s a summary of the article’s key points:

  • Blogs are time savers. A lot of companies are asking employees to write down what they do on a daily basis and it makes sense to keep that info on a blog.
  • The key to blogging is RSS, or “real simple syndication” feeds. The technology automatically notifies users when their frequently watched blogs contain new information. The time-saving principle is being applied to marketing, advertising, product development or virtually any business endeavor that requires collaboration or rapid responses. Dianne Marsh, a co-founder of SRT Solutions and president of the Ann Arbor Computer Society told The News “We look at it as the information finds you, you don’t have to go looking for information.”
  • Blogging provides the convenience of a Web site but is a far less static environment. “It’s becoming a pain and a commodity, calling someone to constantly add content to your site and blogging is a much more efficient way to keep your site up to date,” says SRT co-founder Bill Wagoner.
  • There are now more than 5,000 corporate “blogospheres,” according to blog tracking site, Technorati, including Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and General Motors Corp.
  • Livonia-based Stardock Corp., which makes customized software for Microsoft Windows programs and employees 25, uses a public blog for customers to sound off on the software as well as an internal blog for software developers in Australia, Brazil, Great Britain, Italy and Poland to collaborate & communicate.
  • Daniel Atkins, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Information sees company blogs as “social software,” with blogging moving the same way as e-mail or the Internet. “It’s a more efficient way because it doesn’t involve calling someone up and having to hear the same question over and over again,” Atkins said. “It’s a mechanism of sharing expertise in a more rapid way than writing memos.”

Tough to keep up with all the good articles on blogging but I’ll keep trying to serve up the best for you.

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