Law Librarian Blog

Drudge Report as Gateway to Conventional Journalism

In New Media vs. Old Media: A Portrait of the Drudge Report 2002-2008 (First Monday), Kalev Leetaru reports that the Drudge Report relies heavily on wire services and obscure news outlets to find small stories that will break large tomorrow, making it highly dependent on mainstream “old media” sites. "His site is extremely dependent on the mainstream media [Drudge] draws from, with his daily and hourly update cycles closely matching the update cycle of the U.S. outlets he draws almost 90 percent of his coverage from," writes Leetaru. "In a time when mainstream media is coming under increasing pressure from “new” media, this portrait of one of the Web’s longest–lived and most commercially successful news aggregators paints an image not of a new media paradigm to replace the old, but rather of a symbiotic and highly dependent relationship between old and new." [JH]

Library of Congress Launches Facebook Page

Here it is. See the Library of Congress blog post for details. [JH]

Live Webcasting of Sotomayor Hearing

The Senate Judiciary Committee is providing live webcasting of its hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor's SCOTUS nomination. Here's the link. Hat tip to SCOTUSblog. [JH]

Rounding Up Some State Law Practitioner Blogs

Alabama DUI Lawyer Blog
http://www.alabamaduilawyerblog.com
http://www.alabamaduilawyerblog.com/index.xml
Reviews DUI cases, reports and legislation in Alabama. Published by Steven D. Eversole.

California Criminal Lawyer Blog
http://www.california-criminal-lawyer-blog.com
http://www.california-criminal-lawyer-blog.com/index.xml
Examines criminal law cases, news and reports in California. Published by Takakjian, Sowers & Sitkoff, LLP.

Florida Criminal Defense Attorney Blog
http://www.floridacriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com
http://www.floridacriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com/index.xml
Analyzes criminal law cases, news and opinions in Florida. Published by Finebloom & Haenel, PA.

Florida Injury Attorneys Blog
http://www.floridainjuryattorneysblog.com
http://www.floridainjuryattorneysblog.com/index.xml
Examines injury law news, cases and opinions in Florida. Published by Finebloom & Haenel, PA.

Georgia Workers' Compensation Lawyer Blog
http://www.georgiaworkerscompensationlawyerblog.com
http://www.georgiaworkerscompensationlawyerblog.com/index.xml
Provides opinion on workers' compensation cases, news and matters in Georgia. Published by Moebes Law.

Mississippi Accident Lawyer Blog
http://www.mississippiaccidentlawyerblog.com
http://www.mississippiaccidentlawyerblog.com/index.xml
Reports in injury law cases, news and opinions in Mississippi. Published by Paul Snow, PA.

New York Employment Attorneys Blog
http://www.newyorkemploymentattorneysblog.com
http://www.newyorkemploymentattorneysblog.com/index.xml
Reviews employment law news, reports and opinions in New York. Published by The Harman Firm, PC.

Austin DWI Attorney Blog
http://www.austindwiattorney.org
http://www.austindwiattorney.org/index.xml
Reports on DWI law news, opinions and legislation in Texas. Published by Dunham Law Firm, PC.

[JH]

Are Deadwood Blogs Monuments to Failure?

Blogging is first and foremost about regular posting. If you're not up to the task or have decided to call it a day, Scott Greenfield suggests you should take down your blog:

Pull it.  Remove it, once and for all.  Do this for me.  More importantly, do this for you. For my purpose, you're leaving your litter and cluttering up my blogosphere.  Clean up after yourself so the blogosphere doesn't become a dump, a wasteland of old/bad news. For your purpose, your dead blog is a tombstone.  When someone googles your name, they may find your old, ugly, dead blog, a monument to failure.

On Binary Law, Nick Holmes agrees but with this caveat: "If the reason you quit is you couldn’t hack blogging, then its best for all, as Scott suggests, to take down your monument to failure. But old posts have value: we all keep them in our archives. Dead blogs have value too if the exit is graceful."

From my perspective of running a network of some 50 law prof blogs with about 100 blog editors, regular posting is the alpha and omega of law blogging but you never know if the blogger you just signed up for a blog is really up to the task. One might think age is a factor where younger profs are more likely to blog regularly than older ones. Not true. Or broader topics are more likely to provide news and legal developments for regular posting than narrower topics. Also not true. It is the blogger who makes or doesn't make a blog a valuable resource for regular news reporting, commentary and analysis of developments but I don't know if I would characterize deadwood blogs as monuments to failure on the blogger's part.

The absence of regular posting is a failure to realize blog readers' expectations. We've all had the experience of an alert appearing in our RSS feed subscription services from an inactive blog that has just published something. When that happens, it reminds me how good the blog once was but isn't any longer. Graceful exits from the blogosphere, as Nick Holmes suggests, is a good thing. Either take down your blog or leave it online but do publish a "good-bye world" post. Let your readers know that you decided to call it a day. [JH]

June, the Month Chinese Censors Stopped Taking Their Medication

In a recent post on Internet censorship in China, Rebecca MacKinnon writes that June was "the month the censors stopped taking their medication." From her review of recent developments:

Most of China's educated, largely apolitical, internet-connected urbanites have until now been generally willing to accept the political status quo - and with it a certain amount of censorship, thuggishness and injustice, political paranoia and occasional bizarreness - in exchange for overall social stability (compared to any other time in living Chinese memory), economic growth, plus an impressive increase in China's global power and status. But whoever is driving the latest Internet crackdown and the accompanying moralistic propaganda drive may have done substantial damage to the government's credibility.

Hat tip to Donald Clark, Chinese Law Prof Blog. [JH]

OUP Lexicographers Study the Linguistics of Tweeting

OUP lexicographers have been monitoring more than 1.5 million random tweets since January 2009 and have noticed any number of interesting facts about the impact of Twitter on language usage. Tweets contain significantly more instances of the word "I" than general English text, and verbs are more frequently used in their gerund form (watching, eating, listening). Details on OUP Blog. [JH]

Rounding Up Some State Law Practitioner Blogs

Alabama Injury Attorney Blog
http://www.alabamainjuryattorneyblog.com
http://www.alabamainjuryattorneyblog.com/index.xml
Reviews injury law cases, news and reports in Alabama. Published by Martinson & Beason, PC.

Arizona Construction Accident Lawyer Blog
http://www.arizonaconstructionaccidentlawyerblog.com
http://www.arizonaconstructionaccidentlawyerblog.com/index.xml
Provides opinion on construction accident news, cases and matters in Arizona. Published by the Breyer Law Offices, PC.

California Elder Law Attorney Blog
http://www.californiaelderlawattorneyblog.com
http://www.californiaelderlawattorneyblog.com/index.xml
Discusses elder law news, reports and opinions in California. Published by Premier Legal.

Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
http://www.losangelespersonalinjurylawyerblog.com
http://www.losangelespersonalinjurylawyerblog.com/index.xml
Provides insight on personal injury news, cases and legislation in California. Published by Bruce Abel Law Offices.

Products Liability and Injury Lawyer Blog
http://www.productsliabilityinjurylawyer.com
http://www.productsliabilityinjurylawyer.com/index.xml
Examines personal injury news, cases and reports in California. Published by Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson, Inc

Sacramento Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog
http://www.sacramentomedicalmalpracticelawyerblog.com
http://www.sacramentomedicalmalpracticelawyerblog.com/index.xml
Analyzes medical malpractice cases, news and opinions in California. Published by Moseley Collins.

Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
http://www.sacramentopersonalinjurylawyerblog.com
http://www.sacramentopersonalinjurylawyerblog.com/index.xml
Examines personal injury news, cases and opinions in California. Published by Moseley Collins.

Colorado Springs Criminal Lawyer Blog
http://www.coloradospringscriminallawyerblog.com
http://www.coloradospringscriminallawyerblog.com/index.xml
Covers criminal defense news, reports and matters in Colorado. Published by the Gasper Law Group.

Fort Lauderdale Divorce Lawyer Blog
http://www.fortlauderdaledivorcelawyerblog.com
http://www.fortlauderdaledivorcelawyerblog.com/index.xml
Reports on divorce law news, reports and opinions in Florida. Published by Sandy T. Fox, PA

Lakeland Florida Injury Lawyer Blog
http://www.lakelandfloridainjurylawyer.com
http://www.lakelandfloridainjurylawyer.com/index.xml
Covers personal injury news, cases and reports in Florida. Published by the Rivas Law Group.

Pinellas County Florida Criminal Lawyer Blog
http://www.pinellascountyfloridacriminallawyerblog.com
http://www.pinellascountyfloridacriminallawyerblog.com/index.xml
Provides insight on criminal law cases, reports and opinions in Florida. Published by Pawuk & Pawuk.

Chicago Injury Lawyers Blog
http://www.chicagoinjurylawyersblog.com
http://www.chicagoinjurylawyersblog.com/index.xml
Examines injury law news, cases and reports in Illinois. Published by the Shea Law Group.

Indiana Social Security Disability Lawyer Blog
http://www.indianasocialsecuritydisabilitylawyer.com
http://www.indianasocialsecuritydisabilitylawyer.com/index.xml
Reviews social security disability news, opinions and reports in Indiana. Published by Scott Lewis of Lewis, Lewis & Martinez.

Kentucky Injury Lawyer Blog
http://www.kentuckyinjurylawyerblog.com
http://www.kentuckyinjurylawyerblog.com/index.xml
Reports on personal injury cases, reports and opinions in Kentucky. Published by Bahe, Cook, Cantley & Jones, PLC.

New York Social Security Disability Lawyer Blog
http://www.newyorksocialsecuritydisabilitylawyerblog.com
http://www.newyorksocialsecuritydisabilitylawyerblog.com/index.xml
Discusses social security disability news, reports and legislation in New York. Published by Insler & Hermann, LLP.

Pennsylvania Injury Lawyer Blog
http://www.pennsylvania-injury-lawyer-blog.com
http://www.pennsylvania-injury-lawyer-blog.com/index.xml
Discusses injury law news, cases and reports in Pennsylvania. Published by Anapol Schwartz.

[JH]

Online Privacy: Problematic Data Handling Practices and Consumer Expectations

Online privacy and behavioral profiling are of growing concern among both consumers and government officials. In KnowPrivacy, Joshua Gomez, Travis Pinnick, and Ashkan Soltani, UC Berkeley, School of Information, examine both the data handling practices of popular websites and the concerns of consumers in an effort to identify problematic practices. From the report:

The data for this report were pulled from six domains, three regarding actual website practices and three regarding user expectations. We analyzed the policies of the 50 most visited websites to better understand disclosures about the types of data collected about users, how that information is used, and with whom it is shared. We also looked at specific practices such as sharing information with affiliates and third-party tracking. To understand user concerns and knowledge of data collection we looked at surveys and polls conducted by previous privacy researchers. We looked at records of complaints and inquiries filed with privacy watchdog organizations such as the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC), The California Office of Privacy Protection (COPP), and TRUSTe. Through several Freedom of Information Act requests, we also received records of complaints directly from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Finally, to gain some insight into what aspects of data collection users are being made aware of, we looked at news articles from three major newspapers for topics related to Internet privacy.

The authors conclude by offering potential solutions to realign privacy practices with consumers‘ expectations. Hat tip to beSpacific. [JH]

Staring at Glowing Rectangles

A new report published this week by researchers at Stanford University suggests that Americans spend the vast majority of each day staring at, interacting with, and deriving satisfaction from glowing rectangles. Details at 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles.

Meanwhile (but related) the latest findings of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project mark a departure from the stagnation in home high-speed adoption rates that had prevailed from December, 2007 through December, 2008. During that period, Project surveys found that home broadband penetration remained in a narrow range between 54% and 57%. An April 2009 survey, Home Broadband Adoption 2009, shows 63% of adult Americans now have broadband internet connections at home. The growth in home broadband adoption occurred even though survey respondents reported paying more for broadband compared to May 2008. Last year, the average monthly bill for broadband internet service at home was $34.50, a figure that stands at $39.00 in April 2009. [JH]

A Handful of Practice Area Blogs by Lawyers

Military Veteran Attorney Blog
http://www.militaryveteranattorney.com
http://www.militaryveteranattorney.com/index.xml
Provides insight on veteran law news, cases and opinions in Michigan. Published by Serafini, Michalowski, Derkacz & Associates, PC.

Products Liability and Injury Lawyer Blog
http://www.productsliabilityinjurylawyer.com
http://www.productsliabilityinjurylawyer.com/index.xml
Examines personal injury news, cases and reports in California. Published by Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson, Inc

Drug Recall Lawyer Blog
http://www.drugrecalllawyerblog.com
http://www.drugrecalllawyerblog.com/index.xml
Reports on drug recall news, cases and opinions in Maryland. Published by Law Offices of Miller & Zois, LLC.

Overtime Lawyer Blog
http://www.overtimelawyerblog.com
http://www.overtimelawyerblog.com/index.xml
Reviews overtime law matters, opinions and legislation. Published by Buckley & Klein, LLP.

Lemon Law Lawyer Blog
http://www.lemonlawlawyerblog.com
http://www.lemonlawlawyerblog.com/index.xml
Analyzes lemon law cases, legislation and reports in California. Published by McCoy, Turnage & Robertson, LLP.

DUI Attorneys Blog
http://www.duiattorneys.net
http://www.duiattorneys.net/index.xml
Covers drunk driving opinions, cases and legislation. Published by Dan Jaffe of DUIAttorney.com.

Securities Fraud Attorney Blog
http://www.securitiesfraudattorneyblog.com
http://www.securitiesfraudattorneyblog.com/index.xml
Analyzes securities fraud news, cases and reports in New York. Published by Rich & Intelisano, LLP.

RaceTracker Wiki Now Tracking Every Election for Congress and State Governor

The RaceTracker project on OpenCongress — a non-partisan, fully-referenced, open-source and crowd-sourced wiki project — now lists every candidate running in every U.S. Senate, House and governor’s race. Details on OpenCongress. [JH]

Twitter Search in Plain English

From the great folks at Common Craft. [JH]

Using A Blog to Peer Review Drafts of an Academic Book

Noah Wardrip-Fruin, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of California at Santa Cruz, let the readers of a blog peer review drafts of his latest book, Expressive Processing (MIT Press). He shares his final conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of his experiment on Grand Text Auto. [JH]

EFF's Terms-of-Service Tracker

Terms-Of-Service (TOS) and other website policies form the foundation of one's relationship with social networking sites, online businesses, and other Internet communities. But most people become aware of these terms only when there's a problem. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a service, TOSBack, to help users monitor website TOS polices and track how they change over time. Great idea and EFF has the necessary resources to make this a very useful service. Here's the RSS feed. Hat tip to Simon Fodden on slaw.ca. [JH]

Slugfest in the Legal Blogosphere: Mr. "Legal Hitman" v. Mr. "Irresponsible Anonymous Blogger"

Over the past several weeks Ed Whelan who writes for Bench Memos, a blog published by the National Review Online, and an a pseudonymous blogger at Obsidian Wings known as “Publius,” have been debating various issues related to SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor complete with barbs and insults. In other words, legal and political blog commentary with a heavy dose of ranting and raving -- not exactly an unusual phenomena in the blogosphere.

Publius apparently calls Whelan a "legal hitman," upsetting Whelam sufficiently to track down his identity and out him in Exposing an Irresponsible Anonymous Blogger. "Publius" confirmed his identity in Stay Classy Ed Whelan. He is John F. Blevins of the South Texas College of Law ("I have blogged under a pseudonym largely for private and professional reasons.  Professionally, I’ve heard that pre-tenure blogging (particularly on politics) can cause problems.  And before that, I was a lawyer with real clients.  I also believe that the classroom should be as nonpolitical as possible – and I don’t want conservative students to feel uncomfortable before they take a single class based on my posts.  So I don’t tell them about this blog.  Also, I write and research on telecom policy – and I consider blogging and academic research separate endeavors.  This, frankly, is a hobby.").

The outing created a firestorm of posts in the legal blogosphere. Apparently there's nothing more important going on in the world right now. There is one and only one law blog post worth reading, see Chicago Law Prof Brian Leiter's Thoughts on Anonymity and Pseudonymity in Cyberspace. [JH]

Twitter Usage Patterns: Peer-to-Peer Communications or One-Way Micro-Broadcasting Service?

A recent Harvard Business School study by Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski, New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets, suggests that the top 10 percent of Twitter users produce more than 90 percent of all Tweets. On a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production. "Twitter's usage patterns are ... very different from a typical on-line social network. A typical Twitter user contributes very rarely. Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one. This translates into over half of Twitter users tweeting less than once every 74 days."

Purewire reports that 80 percent of Twitter accounts have fewer than 10 followers and 30 percent have no followers according to Erick Schonfeld's article on TechCruch, On Twitter, Most People Are Sheep: 80 Percent Of Accounts Have Fewer Than 10 Followers. Purewire stats as reported in Schonfeld's story:

Followers

Accounts with 0 followers: 29.4%
Accounts with 1 to 9 followers: 50.9%
Accounts with 10 or more followers: 19.7%

Followings

Accounts following 0 people: 24.4%
Accounts following 1 to 9 people: 43.4%
Accounts following 10 or more people: 32.2%

Tweets 

Accounts with 0 Tweets: 37.1%
Accounts with 1 to 9 Tweets: 41.0%
Accounts with more 10 or more Tweets: 21.9%

Based on these recent Twitter usage studies, Schonfeld writes "[i]t just may be that Twitter really isn’t as much about two-way micro-conversations as it is about one-way micro-broadcasting." As Dan Giancaterino (Jenkins Law Library) writes on Jenkins Blog, "there seems to be a lot more listening than talking going on with Twitter." [JH]

Firefox Add-ons for Research, Communication and Current Awareness

Check out Bonnie Shucha's (Wisconsin) list of Firefox Add-ons which may be useful for the legal or library professional. Very helpful. [JH]

Can You Copyright a Tweet?

When I first read this question in Mark Cuban’s blog maverick, my first reaction was: Why would you? On second consideration I thought, well, because you can, at least theoretically. After all, I never thought people could or would copyright blog postings, but they do. Just because tweets are 140 characters or less, does that make them a lesser citizen under the U.S. Constitution? The question was nicely considered by Attorney Brock Shine at http://www.canyoucopyrightatweet.com and Michael Martin on his Broken Symmetry blog.

I am the first to admit that none of my tweets would or should rise to the level that our founding fathers had in mind when they penned the constitution: “The Congress shall have Power [. . .] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Article 1, Section 8. My dissatisfaction with the 3D in Disney Pixar’s UP or expressed shock at the price increases at Thomson West on twitter are not going to “promote the science and useful Arts.” I have been complaining to West since forever and obviously it promotes nothing but more price increases.

Most tweets are not much different from a comment made on a street corner to a friend. But, what if the tweeter, like Mark Cuban, offers unique insight into a topic? Does that change the analysis? Or, what if the tweeter creates a group of single subject tweets? Could this constitute a ‘body of work’ that might enjoy protection similar to an article or book chapter? To date, a review of law journal literature and case analysis provides no insight. Even the EFF copyright tutorial for digital media and students at http://www.teachingcopyright.org does not address Twitter copyright issues. I guess when Thomson West decides to repackage our tweets and sell them to libraries for an outrageous price, we will have an answer. [VS]

ALA TechSource's New Website Now Online

ALA TechSource has launched www.alatechsource.org, a new electronic archive and delivery platform for Library Technology Reports (LTR) and Smart Libraries Newsletter (SLN). For more, check out the announcement post on ALA TechSource Blog. [JH]