Many law firms and lawyers use the Blogger application to blog. However, one major issue I have with the Blogger platform is the "Next Blog" link displayed at the top of every blog. Basically, whatever blog shows up when you click that link is your neighbor in cyberspace for a moment in time (the blog that displays is constantly changing).
Should you care who your neighbor is when a reader (maybe an important client) arrives at your blog? I would. I wonder, for example, whether the lawyers at the prestigious law firm of Womble Carlye -- who publish an excellent construction law blog on Blogger -- even realize that among their next door neighbors in cyberspace during a recent 10-minute span last night were blogs discussing frog dissection, rap music, and racy fashions.
Is this much ado about nothing? Well, it will probably be obvious to the general counsel who clicks the "Next Blog" link on your blog that your firm does not sponsor wild beach parties with booze and beer on the Barcelona beaches. But if you wouldn't link to a blog about Barcelona beach parties from your website why link to it from your blog?
Consider also that one of Blogger's leading competitors, Typepad, does not have a "Next Blog" button. Seems to me they've concluded there is no real rationale for forcing bloggers to link to blogs that have nothing to do with them, or worse, might even be incredibly embarrassing by association. Anyone care to share what they see as the benefits of the "Next Blog" link on Blogger?
Anyway, for those who want to continue using Blogger (perhaps you've been publishing for a long time and don't want to lose all of those inbound links from other blogs), but don't like the reputational risks of the "Next Blog" link, found this video on the Internet which shows you how to remove the nav bar from your Blogger blog (albeit probably beyond the capabilities of most non-technical lawyers):
I think that your post is great but I really think that most lawyers are inappropriately intimidated by a Wordpress blog on a server as opposed to a blogger or typepad blog. With a wordpress.org or even a wordpress.com these issues don't arise.
Posted by: Darrin Mish | December 23, 2008 at 02:18 AM
Josh- excellent point that all attorney bloggers should do well to recognize while using Google blogger.
Posted by: Gerry Oginski | December 23, 2008 at 02:18 AM