Taking Stock of the BLS Blogosphere

Let’s get meta today at Poseur HQ. As everyone here at the BLS knows, Swanburg is hanging up his law blogging spurs (sort of, kind of, not really) and making the difficult transition to business school blogger. Osler wondered who will pick up the slack, but given the whopping zero comments he’s gotten on that post, I’m thinking it’s not a big concern for the BLS blogosphere. We got by without Chris Farfenblogger, we’ll get by without Swanburg. And Swanny will keep writing, just about different things.

Which begs the question, will I start posting about law school events and cracking BLS scandals like Swanny has? The answer is no. This blog’s never been about that. It’s never been about anything at all, really. The whole point of this thing is to talk about something other than law school, particularly random crap like the octosquid invasion, long-winded rants about baseball, and interviews with buildings. That’s not gonna change for two reasons:

ONE. I’m lazy. I like writing this thing in short bursts of “creativity”. I’m not going to do research and get my hands on SBA emails, which BTW, is pretty damn impressive. Swanny’s like Woodward and Bernstein.

TWO. I don’t care. While law school inevitably pops its head under the curtains here at Poseur HQ, there’s nothing more boring than law students talking about law school. I simply can’t garner up the energy to even pretend to care about the grade distribution of a class I’m not even taking. Which isn’t a shot at Swanburg. He’s a good enough writer to make anything entertaining, and I read his blog every day. But those are the posts of his which make my eyes glaze over. No one has their A game everyday, but Swanny comes remarkably close.

I do hope someone comes along and starts writing about SBA events and making it through this place as a first year. New perspectives are always fun. But I’ll amend Osler’s rules on what makes a successful blog. Free advice. It’s worth exactly what you paid for it:

1) Be interesting. You don’t have to have an interesting life, but you have to have an interesting perspective. Don’t be cliché.
2) Update, update, update. Sometimes I curse this blog because I feel I have to update it. That’s the cost of having a readership. It doesn’t have to be brilliant everyday (or in my case, any day), but you have to try.
3) Write what you know. Don’t be someone you’re not. And don’t take shots at people. If you write something you wouldn’t say to someone’s face, you shouldn’t be writing it.
4) Be a part of the community. The best BLS blogs have been self-referential and given their due to the BlogFather. This is a community. Participate.
5) Encourage comments. They are the lifeblood of a blog. You guys are funnier and more interesting than I am.

And, only sort of related, here is some recent blogger ethics on how the MSM should cite blogs. I just find that interesting.