Skip to main content

LexBlog as a SaaS solution?

LexBlog, via the law bloggers it supports worldwide, has become one the largest legal news and information publishers.

We support these bloggers with a digital design and publishing platform we have developed on a WordPress core.

Developing the platform was the only way we could scale our offering. Without the platform, we could not provide each blogger/publication regular upgrades and feature enhancements, let alone support all of these publishers.

Our platform is not limited to a blog site user interface. The platform can present interfaces for websites, mini-sites, magazines, content portals and what have you.

Knowing this, organizations have approached LexBlog asking if they could license our platform for their members and customers. We’re in the process of doing so.

In discussions with these folks, I started thinking that LexBlog was basically offering a SaaS solution for digital design and publishing. Organizations, or end publishers directly via a do it yourself (DIY) blog, website etc, receive web design and publishing software cloud hosted and supported by LexBlog.

Pulling up the Wikipedia definition of a SaaS solution, what are doing seemed pretty close.

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as “on-demand software”, and was formerly referred to as “software plus services” by Microsoft. SaaS is typically accessed by users using a thin client via a web browser. SaaS has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.

The term “Software as a Service” (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS), managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).

Wow, that’s a mouthful, but you get the point.

Calling things “as a service” can be helpful to understand an offering.

LexBlog’s entire team is in WeWork, which has been characterized as “offices as a service.” Rather than rent and set up offices with everything you need, WeWork provides you everything you need, and more, in a hosted environment for a monthly subscription.

What do you think? Is it helpful to describe LexBlog’s offering as a SaaS solution for digital design and publishing? Does it matter?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Job security is a myth for lawyers without a personal brand

I talked with a highly respected legal professional last Friday who was recently let go by his law firm. He had been employed by the firm for four or five years and employed by similar large law firms for a couple decades before. A couple weeks ago I heard of veteran lawyer who joined a large firm with a major client, but whose employment status was now at risk with the general counsel’s leaving his client. These stories pale in comparison to all of the lawyers who have been the victim of downsizing caused by the collapse or merger of their law firms. With the changes in the legal services market, very few lawyers have job (or stable income) security  writes Dan Lear, Director of Industry Relations at Avvo. Lawyers need to build a strong brand or a business, and to do so now, Per Lear, the job security once held by law firm partners and in-house counsel who had reached the the ranks of Assistant General Counsel or Deputy General Counsel is gone. There’s the former general counse
Post a Comment
Read more

The economics of a legal blogging network as a virtual community

Over twenty years ago I read of the power of virtual communities in Net Gain, Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities by John Hagel and Arthur Armstrong (now executive director of Debevoise &Plimpton). I read  Net Gain  then while creating Prairielaw.com, a virtual law community of lawyers and lay people alike, later sold to LexisNexis. I am reading Net Gain again as LexBlog’s worldwide legal blogging network begins to pick up steam. This legal blogging network is every bit a virtual community of: Blogging legal professionals Those supporting these legal bloggers – LexBlog and its partners Those whom benefit from the legal information and commentary of legal bloggers, including legal professionals, consumers of legal services empowered by legal blogs to select a lawyer in a more informed fashion, and other publishers who receive blog commentary by syndication. No question there is a business model in organizing a legal blogging community, so long as the focus rema
Post a Comment
Read more

Blogging Makes You a Better Lawyer

LexBlog’s associate editor, Melissa Lin , shared on Twitter this week a blog post of mine on some of the reasons that lawyers blog – to learn, to join a conversation and to build a community. To which Josh King , the former general counsel of Avvo and the current general counsel of realself  added, “Also makes you a better lawyer. Also makes you a better lawyer. — Josh King (@joshuamking) September 27, 2019 I have been following King’s blog for years. He has a keen interest in the professional speech regulation of lawyers, and how that regulation may not serve the public interest. I’ve watched him pick up relevant news stories, whether from traditional media or legal bloggers, dissect the issue, analyze the law and share his commentary. Good stuff. I engaged him and others on many of his posts. King was doing exactly one of the things we were told in law school, and which the consumer of legal services would like to see in their lawyer, he was staying up to speed in relevant
1 comment
Read more