Kevin O’Keefe and David Giacalone both comment on my recent post about Blogads. Kevin says that, for lawyers who use their blogs to market their legal services, advertising is a big mistake. David agrees. I agree as well. If your blog’s purpose is primarily marketing, advertising is not only unnecessary, but tacky. My original post on this had in mind the more altruistic blawgers who do it to keep themselves and others informed about new developments in a field and to share their perspectives on those developments. As a long-time journalist, I was thinking about blogs as information resources rather than as marketing tools. Clearly they can be and are both. To the extent blogs parallel more traditional forms of legal news services, why shouldn’t they have ads?

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.