The good people at West have just announced a new legal podcast, WestCast. Bankruptcy reform, the topic of their first installment, isn't my thing, but if you're interested, you might want to tune in. Oh heck, I'm going to listen anyway. Hmmm, it's that time of year here in California, too bad it's not available for MCLE credit!
It's very interesting how quickly the podcasting trend is growing.
It's common knowledge that the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 7.0 will support RSS, but what about Outlook? RSS is a "push" technology, as is email, and I'd rather read my feeds in my email app rather than my browser. RSS is also about up to the minute updating, and after all, Outlook is the first app I open in the morning, and the last one I close down at night.
I'm convinced that once Outlook is RSS-aware, RSS will finally really take off, especially in enterprise environments. Well, get ready, because according to Office Watch 10.06, Outlook 12 will include support for both RSS and podcasting!
I know that Newsgator integrates to Outlook AND is offering an enterprise product, but my guess is that most people/organizations would prefer NOT to purchase an additional product if they can help it, so I believe the need for a separate application is greatly slowing down the adoption of RSS in the average or even not so average law firm. Let's hope Microsoft gets it right.
Outlook 12 isn't that far off - it's estimated release is sometime in the second half of 2006 - so be prepared. Though recent statistics have shown that only a small percentage of Internet users regularly use RSS, once it's integrated into Outlook, that number will likely explode. Position yourself to provide internal information, news and updated search results via RSS. You will need to be the RSS expert if you want to deliver current information to your organization.
Podcasting has been getting a lot of buzz lately. Podcasts are available from mainstream media such as NPR; on the other hand the kid down the street might also have his own podcast. Blogs and the web made it possible for anyone to be a publisher. Now podcasting is attracting those who have always wanted to be broadcasters, including librarians.
For example, Jim Milles may have missed his calling. He does a great job as talk show host on his regular podcast available on "Check This Out: Law, libraries and life in a northern border town."
Though it's generally academically oriented, but there's a little something for everybody. It's a great example of what can be done with podcasting.
Just an FYI, you don't have to have an iPod to listen to a podcast. I was able to listen to it on my computer via Quicktime. You can also listen to the streaming audio online at Podcast Alley, Podfeed.net, or Yahoo! Podcasts.
By the way, in Episode 6, the trend of offering class lectures or other faculty assistance via MP3 files is discussed in an interview with John Mayer, Executive Director of The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI).
This post on Library Web Chic about using iPods in academic libraries for such things as audio reserves for music classes and pictures for art history classes reminded me of something I've thought would be very useful; attorney MCLE programs via audio MP3 files.
Sure, there are probably some attorneys in your firm that don't have a MP3 player, but that's okay, because you could purchase a couple of MP3 players as loaners. (iPods would be fun, but a much cheaper player would be more practical for this purchase.) Just think, no more lost audiotapes. We could maintain a library of MP3 programs, and copy them to the player as needed. Of course, how you'd get the loaner MP3 players back is another issue.
I assume that vendors aren't supplying programs via MP3 because they don't WANT us to be able to copy and redistribute too freely. But there must be a way to make this work for both vendor and user.
Podcasting could facilitate something like this, but you don't really need podcasting to deliver MCLE programs in MP3 format.
Speaking of podcasting and MCLE, Robert J. Ambrogi wrote an article on just that topic in the Feburary 2005 issue of Law Technology News, "Podcasting: CLE's New Wave." (Law Technology News requires registration.)
Open Stacks offers what may be the first library-related podcast! In honor of the occasion, I thought this would be a good opportunity to briefly discuss podcasts, so if you're unfamiliar with the term, or think that they somehow relate to a popular, but hokey, 50's horror film, I recommend that you read on.
You all know how an RSS feed works. Podcasting is a similar concept, but instead of distributing text, podcasts distribute audio recordings via what is essentially a RSS feed for audio files. Blogs allow anyone to be a publisher. Podcasts allow anyone to be a broadcaster.
