More on blogs and blawgs and an emerging medium

As I noted in this post last month, Lincoln Caplan has this piece in Legal Affairs magazine which uses this blog/blawg as a jumping off point for making observations about blogs and blawgs.  The main point of the piece seems to be that legal “blawgs” are different because we are not populist: Caplan concludes by asserting “while blawgs are blogs, they rarely have the populist touch that is supposed to make blogs blogs.”

Today the blogsphere is talking up the Caplan piece.  Orin Kerr over at The Volokh Conspiracy here asks “who ever said that blogs are supposed to have the populist touch?”.   Ernest Miller, taking a different approach in this extended post at Corante, asserts that three of the blawgs (other than this one) that Caplan mentions “are incredibly populist.”

These contrasting reactions to Caplan’s piece spotlight for me not only the quirks of a label like “populist,” but also the excitement of working in a developing medium that is still being defined by its participants.  The constructs and customs of the blogsphere are still evolving, and I continue to enjoy watching how the authors and readers of blogs and blawgs are dynamically shaping and reshaping this fascinating little cyber-universe. 

Comments on this topic, from either the populist masses or elitist snobs, are welcome.