According to webpronews.com, “only 2% of todays internet users use RSS.” For that matter I have wondered if they even know what it is. This will increase over time. For example IE 7 ships next year with its own RSS aggregator.
What does this have to do with lawyers and blogging you might ask. Larry Bodine says “its not too late to start blogging (but it will be soon). Bull!!
Kevin O’Keefe of lexBlog provides some insight into why lawyers should not be afraid to blog now. He also mentions that while it would be good for business to scare lawyers into doing a blog now, it really will not be too late if you don’t start now.
Here are some quick facts from Kevin:
• The majority of lawyers will be publishing to a blog at some point in the near future.
• Lawyers, whether starting a blog now or in a couple years, will be using the blog as a business development tool when meeting with new clients or in pitching for new work with existing clients.
• Internet users, who will be as familiar with RSS as they are now with email, will subscribe to hundreds of sources of feeds. If a lawyer has good content, they’ll pick up subscribers.
• Journalists, heavy users of blogs via keyword/key phrase RSS feeds from Technorati or NewsGator, will get a lawyer’s blog feeds whether from a blog started now or later.
• Same point was made with websites. We were told in ’97 that there’s an immigration law website so it’s too late for another.
• Microsoft will bring to market in the next year the tools to make it easy for the public to use blogs and RSS. We’ll then see a much greater growth in blog publishing.
Consider for a moment only one point of Kevin’s post. “[i]nternet users, who will be as familiar with RSS as they are now with email, will subscribe to hundreds of sources of feeds. If a lawyer has good content, they’ll pick up subscribers.” And with that consider that only 2% of Internet users know what RSS is and use it.
Are there continued opportunities for lawyers and blogging? Well, 98% of the internet users are your possible readers. Not bad if you ask me. “The opportunities will still be there in the years ahead.” However, why wait?
