Jan

30

The price of free music

Filed Under Business

Here’s a couple of truisms in the digital age:

once you digitise your content, you have to wave your content goodbye
users are willing to pay for digital services that make their lives easier

Current attempts to help the music industry dig itself out of its hole seem to ignore the latter, relying on advertising to support the […]

By Nick Holmes, 30 January 2008

Jan

22

The Future of Ideas

Filed Under Copyright, Free culture

A little bit of a stir erupts as Lawrence Lessig persuades Random House to release his (2001) The Future of Ideas, in which he explores “the fate of the commons in a connected world”, under a Creative Commons licence. But don’t get too excited just yet. It’s currently available only as a single, dumb, 350-page […]

By Nick Holmes, 22 January 2008

Jan

20

Hats off to Charon QC

Filed Under Podcasts, Blogging

I finally succumbed to Charon QC’s invitation to be be interviewed for his series of podcasts - in Podcast 37, wherein we discuss infolaw, blawging and the future direction of law publishing.
One day on and he has already put out another individual podcast and the second of his Weekend Review podcasts in which several are […]

By Nick Holmes, 20 January 2008

Jan

18

Lessons from Facebook

Filed Under Social networking

Like many “grown up” commentators, Martin Weller, a Professor of Educational Technology at the Open University, sees Facebook fading away for many of us as we get back to the humdrum of everyday life (Facebook was a holiday romance, not the great love of your life). However, rather than rehearsing the reasons why he has […]

By Nick Holmes, 18 January 2008

Jan

14

He couldn’t have said it better himself

Filed Under Fun, Blogging

I came across the following hilarious garbage, scraped from Kevin O’Keefe’s post about my FamilyLawPipe and translated into … what?

Family accumulation pipes?
Nick Holmes, a business consultant specializing in the UK jural sector, has created a FamilyLawPipe aggregating UK kinsfolk accumulation feeds with character Pipes. From Nick:
…Yahoo Pipes is a assist from character which enables you […]

By Nick Holmes, 14 January 2008

Jan

14

On citizenship of a virtual republic

Filed Under Social networking

Two different takes questioning why we should want to buy into the virtual republic that is Facebook:
Stephen Fry in his Dork talk column:
what is this much-trumpeted social networking but an escape back into that world of the closed online service of 15 or 20 years ago? Is it part of some deep human instinct that […]

By Nick Holmes, 14 January 2008

Jan

10

Pimp your own ride

Filed Under Technology, Blogging

Steve Matthews believes there will be a big increase soon in the use of blog software to build websites.
Agreed. I’ve already said a lot about the benefits of blogging for networking and raising profile. You may not be convinced; you may not see yourself as a “thought leader”; you may not want to hang out […]

By Nick Holmes, 10 January 2008

Jan

9

Law pipes

Filed Under Feeds

Well, the cat’s out the bag already. Within hours John Bolch picked up on a FamilyLawPipe I created yesterday with Yahoo Pipes.
For those of you who need an introduction, Yahoo Pipes is a service from Yahoo which enables you to take inputs from RSS feeds and other XML etc files, manipulate them (eg sort, filter, […]

By Nick Holmes, 9 January 2008

Jan

9

The law wiki dream (2)

Filed Under Articles, Wikis

First published September 2007 in the Legal Web e-book on Legal Information and Web 2.0.
Most of us know of wikis primarily through the granddaddy of all wikis, Wikipedia, which provides an immense, user-generated encyclopedia of articles on every conceivable topic. Could we achieve something similar — more limited in scope, but more in-depth and more […]

By Nick Holmes, 9 January 2008

Jan

7

Internet Newsletter for Lawyers & Law 2.0 January/February 2008 issue

Filed Under Newsletter

In this issue:

Software as a Service - going mainstream in 2008
Digital media and the law
Company Law Forum
Eleven years of Internet Law with Graham Smith
Legal research in England and the USA compared
The Network in 2008
Getting to grips with HIPs
CaseCheck - Law 2.0 in action
Wishing on a wiki
Virtually unrecognisable?

View the Newsletter. Full access + print issues by […]

By Nick Holmes, 7 January 2008