’s Simon Kuper had an interesting column this weekend on the benefits of expat life. A self-confessed media junkie in Britain, Kuper escapes his “media bubble” while living in Paris, but finds he can’t gauge the status of Frenchmen without it, nor can they “read” his.

“If you are in the media bubble, the status dance follows automatically. Mostly, what the media do is track people’s rising or falling status. When you meet someone in your own country, you don’t just see the person. You see their status too. They wear it like a hat.”

Kuper sees his new freedom from it all as a relief rather than a disadvantage – after all, how much of the media is about information, and how much is just about keeping you glued to the screen?

Kuper’s piece made me reflect on the mainstream media e-discovery coverage in the last few months. With recent pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and now a Forbes blog, e-discovery is on the mainstream radar, and will reside within that “bubble” to a larger extent from now on. Its stock now rises and falls more with the 24 hour news cycle, as will that of the vendors involved.

Analysts, too, are paying more attention to e-discovery this year, among both the heavyweights and the one-man shops. It will be an exciting time for new business, as users get more informed about the market and hopefully start asking better questions than “are you end to end?” It could also herald the much-anticipated market consolidation, as “winners” and “losers” are more clearly defined in (and by) the press and analyst community.

But where it leaves e-discovery in the “hype cycle” is another question. Much of the coverage has been more heat than light, and not all of us can move to France to escape the “media bubble” it’s forming.

Is e-discovery “eating jobs” for attorneys?

Is it democratizing the US legal system?

Will it be part of a new corporate GRC arms race?

Or will it once again be relegated to a bunch of Q4 top 10 lists as a “CIO trend to watch for the coming year?”

Those new enthusiasts eager to “fire their law firm” based on these reports without digging any deeper may still be in for a long and arduous journey to getting burned, as many have before them. Prior to the media blitz, many companies have found out about e-discovery the old-fashioned way: either from their first lawsuit, or cumulative legal sticker shock. They’ve in-sourced different functions of e-discovery according to their needs, sometimes learning what works the hard way through “trial and error” (pun intended) an

The FT’s Simon Kuper had an interesting column this weekend on the benefits of expat life.  A self-confessed media junkie in Britain, Kuper escapes his “media bubble” while living in Paris, but finds he can’t gauge the status of Frenchmen without it, nor can they “read” his.

“If you are in the media bubble, the status dance follows automatically. Mostly, what the media do is track people’s rising or falling status. When you meet someone in your own country, you don’t just see the person. You see their status too. They wear it like a hat.”

Kuper sees his new freedom from it all as a relief rather than a disadvantage – after all, how much of the media is about information, and how much is just about keeping you glued to the screen?

Kuper’s piece made me reflect on the mainstream media e-discovery coverage in the last few months.  With recent pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and now a Forbes blog, e-discovery is on the mainstream radar, and will reside within that “bubble” to a larger extent from now on.  Its stock now rises and falls more with the 24 hour news cycle, as will that of the vendors involved.

Analysts, too, are paying more attention to e-discovery this year, among both the heavyweights and the one-man shops.  It will be an exciting time for new business, as users get more informed about the market and hopefully start asking better questions than “are you end to end?”  It could also herald the much-anticipated market consolidation, as “winners” and “losers” are more clearly defined in (and by) the press and analyst community.

But where it leaves e-discovery in the “hype cycle” is another question.  Much of the coverage has been more heat than light, and not all of us can move to France to escape the “media bubble” it’s forming.

Is e-discovery “eating jobs” for attorneys?

Is it democratizing the US legal system?

Will it be part of a new corporate GRC arms race?

Or will it once again be relegated to a bunch of Q4 top 10 lists as a “CIO trend to watch for the coming year?”

Those new enthusiasts eager to “fire their law firm” based on these reports without digging any deeper may still be in for a long and arduous journey to getting burned, as many have before them.  Prior to the media blitz, many companies have found out about e-discovery the old-fashioned way:  either from their first lawsuit, or cumulative legal sticker shock.  They’ve in-sourced different functions of e-discovery according to their needs, sometimes learning what works the hard way through “trial and error” (pun intended) and throwing good money after bad.

At ESG, we’re working on an e-discovery user survey to gauge the maturity of the market, and identify how enterprise companies are managing the process internally.  We’ll have more details in the coming weeks, as well as several Market Landscape reports further down the line on developments in different corners of the market – the Future of Review, Legal Hold, and currently our Initial Case Assessment report.

The aim is to give users a better understanding of their own needs and what’s available.  In the process, we hope to shed some light on the subject, and cut down on some of the hot air.

d throwing good money after bad.

At ESG, we’re working on an e-discovery user survey to gauge the maturity of the market, and identify how enterprise companies are managing the process internally. We’ll have more details in the coming weeks, as well as several Market Landscape reports further down the line on developments in different corners of the market – the Future of Review, Legal Hold, and currently our Initial Case Assessment report.

The aim is to give users a better understanding of their own needs and what’s available. In the process, we hope to shed some light on the subject, and cut down on some of the hot air.