(Bumping September 6 post. Still only 113 members. Which means (1) without some more recruiting, we’re not going to hit the charity goal; and (2) the rest of you are missing the discussion Walter and I had over the Democrats and tort reform, plus the bonus links Walter and I are providing.)
I’ll be forthright: the Overlawyered.com Facebook Group was created as an experiment to see whether there were other media by which Overlawyered could deliver its content. (And it did have the side effect of getting Walter Olson to join Facebook.) And we’re providing extra content there that isn’t on the blog, plus the opportunity of open threads that our Movable Type blogging software doesn’t provide.
Perhaps our readers are too mature for Facebook. (The #1 “related group” for the Overlawyered group isn’t something libertarian or law-related, but “Unlike 99.99% of the Facebook population, I was born in the 70s”—and Walter and I are too old even for that group.) And we’re not asking you to join Facebook if you’re not already a member. But, if we do have readers on Facebook, we’d like to see you in our group: your membership passively helps promote the site and spread the word in the increasingly crowded legal blog market. The larger our readership, the easier it is for Walter and I to self-justify spending time blogging instead of writing for conventional mainstream publications. Everyone wins!
The question is whether Facebook is a good vehicle to accomplish this goal. With so few members in our Facebook group, I’m skeptical: it’s not worth the effort to create extra content for a few dozen extra readers, and the group would become dormant. So I’m going to try another experiment. I’m setting a goal of getting 1000 members into our Facebook group by September 30. If we reach that membership goal, I promise to donate up to $2000 to a sympatico tax-deductible charity chosen by a thread or poll in the Facebook group—$1000 for the thousandth member, $1 more for every additional member (up to 2000) we have at 11:59 pm Eastern on September 30. What say you, the loyal Overlawyered readership? If you’re a Facebook member, come join our group, and tell your friends about us.
11 Comments
Have you considered a LiveJournal community? I don’t know anything about Facebook, but LJ is pretty user-friendly, and has a larger population of over-20 users.
I was #96! There’s still a ways to go!
My understanding is you didn’t want anyone to join Facebook just to sign up so this might be a sign the people who read Overlawyered are not members.
Uhm, I’m not entirely sure about this, but don’t you imagine a anti-legal, mostly libertarian, get your lawsuits out of my wallet crowd would be kind of low on “joiners” ?
I was even a bit trepidatious about clicking “Remember my personal info” here in the comments section, much less inclined to sign up to some myspace equivalent where I might find hundreds of “new friends” that I didn’t know …
I’m on Facebook, but I scrupulously keep everything political off my profile there.
Griffin3: It’s not like Myspace. Your profile is pretty much locked down to people you’ve already friended, who you can find by searching by name. So all that has to be public is the fact that you have an account at all (and you can leave everything blank but an email address, so facebook itself doesn’t know anything more about you).
Have you looked at an upgrade to MT4?
Good heavens, one comes to Overlawyered for serious commentary on the law, not suggestions that we should join our children on Facebook.
I heartily second Jake’s comment.
I’m just looking for ways to expand our readership to the law students and lawyers of tomorrow who are getting indoctrinated into the wonders of tort law. I’m open for other suggestions, since this one looks like a bust.
Have you tried giving out free OL koozies? I know that many moons ago in law school, any vendor that gave away free koozies got my attention. Much moreso than Lexis and their free highlighters… bah!
I must confess that I was a little dismayed when, in attempting to respond to Walter’s invitation to be his “friend,” I was brought to a screen that asked me how it was that I met him, none of the selections of which was “we have mutually shared views on law and public policy.” Being something of a practical joker, I thought of checking the “we hooked up” box, though, but blanched and demurred.