Blogiversary Celebration Part 2: About the Blog’s Impact

Yesterday, we celebrated the blog’s 10 year anniversary. I apologize in advance for the self-serving nature of this post, but I wanted to know from blog readers:

Tell us an anecdote about how the blog has made a difference to your practice, positively or negatively. For example, maybe we blogged one of your cases in a favorable or unfavorable light; or maybe the blog helped you find some useful material to advance your work. Please don’t provide any confidential/privileged information! But we’d love to hear how the blog has had an impact on its readers.

In addition to several folks who mentioned that the blog helped build our friendship, some of the answers I got:

David Bateman: I have a fond place in my heart for the Technology & Marketing Law Blog. It’s my favorite read with morning coffee, and gets my mind warmed up better than the daily Sudoko. It’s my closest connection to academia, and allows me a brief refreshment of purely intellectual pursuit and scholarly observation on topics of interest — even if they are not directly relevant to my clients’ current legal problems.

In your staunch defense of CDA 230, you strike a chord with me on an important Internet issue. Coming to the blog with this predisposition, I can always count on timely and insightful reporting — that happens to align with my views. Like getting news from PBS, not Fox.

In addition to casual reading, I confess that I frequently use the blog to survey the field on issues arising in my cases, and to check out new developments.

Franklin Graves: I’ve been reading your blog for the past few years, starting when I was in law school. At that time, I relied on the blog as a way to encourage an overly stressed law student how what he was studying could actually be applied later in practice (plus, I gained some pretty awesome talking points for in-class discussion). Now that I am a newly practicing in-house attorney, I rely on the blog to stay at the forefront of an area of practice that seems to grow every week!

James Grimmelmann: I edit an Internet Law casebook; my best source for teachable cases is the Technology & Marketing Law Blog. The blog lives at the intersection of important and interesting. You’d think those two qualities would go naturally together, but I know from personal experience how hard it is to maintain both at a high level at the same time. Eric and Venkat and their merry band make it look effortless. I hope someday that the blog becomes the core of a new and uncommonly accessible treatise.

Yoram Lichtenstein: I have used this blog on a daily basis for a long time to get insightful updates on relevant legal cases and issues and it has been very enlightening. In 2008, if my memory serves me right, I got a huge victory in court against the English Premier League trying to disclose my clients’ details on a John Doe request. The decision made waves throughout Israel and abroad, but my most proud moment was to read my own post on it in this blog.

Scott Malouf: Before I forget, thank you so very much for this blog. You guys are creating outstanding, nuanced commentary that helps me every week. That rolls into my answer for question #1: You are one of my key “go to’s” for keeping up with developments and in-depth case analysis. If you’ve covered it, then I can skip the other guys.

Forgive these trite expressions, but I also read your blog because it is not about you. I know where you stand, but you stay focused on explaining a case, not arguing it. In a world (Get out of my head movie trailer!!) of self-indulgent bloggers, I can count on you to be just-the-facts.

Michael Risch: I find the blog useful for keeping up with current cases in the areas you cover. I frequently either a) remember a case or issue because I about read it on the blog or b) search through the blog first if there’s a new issue I want to get background on. I’ve forwarded posts to my students and even family and friends in relevant areas.

Dr. Natasha Tusikov: The Technology & Marketing Law Blog was a great reference for me while writing my PhD dissertation on the online regulation of counterfeit goods by Internet intermediaries. The analysis of case law concerning intellectual property was comprehensive, relevant and, considering the complexity of IP law, extremely clear. To another ten years!

Final words from Eric: We strive to make the blog useful to its readers, and hearing that we have achieved this goal, at least occasionally, is enormously gratifying.

Another way to measure the blog’s impact: I did a search this morning in Westlaw’s secondary sources database for the string [adv: “blog.ericgoldman.org” or “technology #and marketing law blog” or “tech. #and mktg l blog”] and got 267 citations. Not all of those cites are to posts I wrote; many of them are to posts from Venkat or guests. I think we have moved well past the debate about whether or not blogging is scholarship; all I can say is that I’m pretty sure the blog, taken as a whole, has generated the most academic citations of any of my work.

UPDATE: Andreas Schou wrote me: “Has anyone mentioned how great your blog is? (Because it’s great.) If you hadn’t been obsessively tracking every last CDA 230 case, I wouldn’t have gotten this job at Google.” LOVE IT!

UPDATE 2: Bret Cohen wrote: “Frequently, I’ll go to the blog as my starting point for research on key issues rather than a treatise or doing blanket WestLaw research, because I know you’ll have the major developments covered.”
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This is part 2 of a 4 part series celebrating our 10 year blogiversary:

Part 1: Happy 10th Blogiversary!
Part 2: The Blog’s Impact
Part 3: The Blogosphere’s Evolution
Part 4: Changes in Internet and IP Law
Bonus: A Video Interview About the Blog