Web 2.0 in the Legal Blogosphere

As the legal blogosphere goes from childhood to adolescence to (eventually) full-throated adulthood, I've enjoyed not just contributing my own small efforts to that process, but also being able to be an armchair observer of other developments having nothing whatsoever to do with me. 

Partly this stems from my endless fascination with the proliferation of business models the online world has spawned, and with luck will continue to spawn.   Partly it stems from my wanting to vindicate—or invalidate—a theory of mine to the effect that any new media channel begins life by imitating the closest analogous old-media channel, and that it takes an explosion of experimentation before the new media understands "what it wants to be when it grows up."  Thus radio began by staging plays and running vaudeville acts years before discovering its real home in news, talk, and music.  Likewise, TV began by imitating radio before it found its strength in late-breaking news, sports, and series. 

And yes, thus the web began imitating print and has evolved roughly as follows:

• Web 1.0
  • revolution = hyperlinks
  • static content ("brochure-ware")
  • activity = surfing
• Web 1.5
  • revolution = self-contained portals
  • dynamic content (Salon, Nerve, Slashdot)
  • activity = search
• Web 2.0
  • revolution = collaboration
  • user-generated content
  • activity = share

Today I'm here to report on an emerging category of legal sites targeting micro-communities with micro-focused content. 

The best example I've seen, which I just learned of this week, is Drug and Device Law, which is—yep!—about pharmaceutical and medical device product liability.  Its founders and co-hosts are Jim Beck, with Dechert in Philadelphia, and Mark Herrmann, with Jones Day in Cleveland.  (Careful readers will recognize mark as the author of The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law.)  Their goal for the site?  As Mark put it to me, "Jim and I would be quite happy with a "fit audience, though few": inside counsel at drug and device companies and sophisticated lawyers who act as outside counsel for those companies."

Why is this different than, say, a three-ring binder treatise on the same subject?

Look back up at my bullets under "Web 2.0:"  The potential is for "Drug and Device Law" to become essentially home-base for a community of practice, exchanging ideas, analyses, and even briefs (well, OK, we could start with string cites).  Now imagine trying to replicate the robust functionality of that same potential community in the off-line world.

I rest my case. 

So Happy Zero Birthday to Drug and Device Law.