FAILING TO TAKE WEBLOGS SERIOUSLY: HOW I FAILED TO SPOT A TREND . . .  As a guy with a couple of weblogs, it might seem like I'm pretty hip to the blogging movement and all, but the truth is I'm still stuck in the 20th century. My problem is that I just can't seem to take blogging as seriously as everyone else.

Case in point: When law professors starting to get all exited about weblogs a few years ago, what did I do? Did I congratulate them for their ambitious vision? Did I commend them for their embrace of new technologies? Did I jump on their bandwagon? No, I mocked them, more or less, with a post: "Law Professors: Blog Your Way to Tenure."

Boy, was I wrong. The law-professor-blogging-movement has taken on so much steam that they're holding a conference about it tomorrow at Harvard: "Bloggership: How Blogs are Transforming Legal Scholarship." It's an opportunity for them all to get together and study "the impact of blogs on the legal academy." I read about it at Althouse. You can even rub elbows with a bunch of the participants who will be hanging out together in the same room (and posing a serious threat to the law-professor-blogging phenomenon should a meteor strike): Randy Barnett, Howard Bashman, Douglas Berman, Paul Butler, Paul Caron, Michael Froomkin, Eric Goldman, Gail Heriot, Christine Hurt, Orin Kerr, Peter Lattman, Jim Lindgren, Betsy Malloy, Ellen Podgor, Larry Ribstein, Gordon Smith, Dan Solove, Larry Solum, Eugene Volokh, and Ann Althouse.

Not all of those luminaries are law professors, but it's still quite a list. I wish them luck as they get together at Bloggership to discuss "the role of the law professor blogger" and "the many faces of law professor blogs" and "law blogs as legal scholarship." I hope they remember that if anyone tells them that a blogger is just a writer with a cooler name, they should distinguish that statement on its facts--"Yes, except we're law professors. We're more than just writers. And now we're the uber-bloggers."

It's true. Law professors are the uber-bloggers. Not only do they have the best conference locations, but they also get the most law-blog traffic. I officially stand corrected.

UPDATE 4/28 Professor Althouse is live-blogging the conference.

Comments

[Dave!]

The best conference locations?! My "Dave! Blog Con Grand Caymen 2006" begs to differ.

[Dave!]

Er, Grand Cayman. :)

[Evan]

Dave: I stand corrected once again. I should have written "the most prestigious" conference locations, which is what I meant.

[theDonnybrook]

I don't know if I would create a category of uber-blawgship just for law professors. My question is why should it make a difference if a writer is a professor? Many blogs address similar issues, in equally intelligent ways, by writers who have similar credentials. Why do the professors stand out moreso than the rest of us with something to contribute?