Blogging as a biology editor

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Blogging as a biology editor
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Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
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CSHL Press

• Founded 1933
• Approx. 60 staff, located at Cold Spring Harbor,
  Plymouth (UK), Tuebingen (Germany) and San Diego
• Over 200 books in print, including lab manuals,
  monographs, textbooks, trade, and childrens
  books
• Electronic media technique videos, CDs, DVDs,
  electronic books, companion websites for manuals
  and other books
• 6 Monthly Journals Genes Development, Genome
  Research, Learning Memory, RNA, Protein Science
  and CSH Protocols
• BioSupplyNet.com online and print directory of
  laboratory suppliers and products
  (http//www.biosupplynet.com)
• Online catalog at http//www.cshlpress.com

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Manual Publishing
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Surely theres a better way
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CSH Protocols
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Bench Marks

• Editorial Blog
• http//www.cshblogs.org
• RSS feed of blog available on journal home page

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Why a blog?

• Promote a new journal
• Put a human face on things
• Promote community
• Spark discussion on methods, effectiveness,
  modifications, variations on procedures.

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Hows it going?
A panel of science web publishers said
scientists had consistently shunned wikis,
tagging, and social networks, and have even
proven reticent to leave comments on web
pages. The Register, March 2007
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Web 2.0 is not a cure-all
Web 2.0 has become a warm and dark space for
people with too much time and too few ideas. They
are shielded through the flawed assumption that
if more people (and as a visitor to Second
Life, I use this word advisedly ) are involved
in doing something then it becomes important.
When we were at high school, this was called mob
rule. Now it is called social networking. Tara
Brabazon Professor of Media Studies, Brighton
University this is a promotional vehicle for a
cadre of mostly unimportant serial self-promoters
(including the author), and a few "somebodies"
who you can already learn too much about
somewhere else. if you need a reason to hate the
small group of wannabe-celebrities who form the
"web2" echo chamber, then this book has a
purpose Amazon.com review of a recent book on
Web 2.0
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The Blogosphere

• More than 112,000,000 blogs
• More than 1 blog created every second

From http//datamining.typepad.com/
and http//sspnet.org/News/OReilly_TOC__A_WakeUp_C
all_to/news.aspx
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Information Overload / Time Constraints

• Social networking sites, blogs, wikis, etc., all
  demand a great deal of time from their users
• I can barely keep up with the literature in my
  field and with what my labmates are doing. Who
  has time to spend reading some grad students
  blog?
• Anonymous Postdoc
• It takes too much time to comment on a
  scientific article properly, theres no incentive
  (cant put it in your CV) or honor to be gained
  (no one asked me to review this) and they are not
  written to be discussed.
• Roland Krause
• Notes From The Biomass Blog

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Who Reads Science Blogs?

• Other science bloggers
• The long tail of proliferating mediocrity,
  where bloggers link to other bloggers and
  podcasters namecheck other podcasters, is the
  great cost of Web 2.0.
• Tara Brabazon
• Professor of Media Studies, Brighton University

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Those participating can skew your view
If an attempt to craft a wiki that strives for
accuracy, even via a flawed model, is considered
something for stick-in-the-muds, then its
apparent that many of Wikipedias supporters
value the dynamics of its community more than the
credibility of the product they deliver. W.A.
Gerrard In most online communities, 90 of users
are lurkers who never contribute, 9 of users
contribute a little, and 1 of users account for
almost all the action. Jacob Nielsen
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Who Reads Science Blogs?

• Other science bloggers
• The long tail of proliferating mediocrity,
  where bloggers link to other bloggers and
  podcasters namecheck other podcasters, is the
  great cost of Web 2.0.
• Tara Brabazon
• Professor of Media Studies, Brighton University
• Non-scientists / Non-specialists
• Despite the proliferation of physics blogs,
  Carroll is not very optimistic about them taking
  a more prominent role in physics research. From
  posting papers on arXiv.org to e-mail, the
  current way in which physicists communicate is
  already efficient. Blogs, however, could serve as
  a place for specialists and nonspecialists to
  interact, chipping away at the barriers
  separating academia from the general public.
• Caltech Engineering and Science, October 2007

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Who Reads Science Blogs?

• Journalists
• The truth is that science journalists have
  always relied on actual scientists to help us
  understand the implications of some new
  discovery. Some of us are pretty savvy about some
  areas of science, but still, we need to get
  expert perspective. Scientist-bloggers help us do
  that, only more efficiently.
• Michael D. Lemonick
• TIME Magazine Contributing Writer
• Search engines

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Who Reads My Blog?

• Comments
• 8.1 About journal content / Methods
• 91.9 About Web 2.0 / Science Publishing
• Top 5 Posts
• 3 About journal content / Methods
• 2 About Web 2.0 / Science Publishing
• Top 10 Posts
• 7 About journal content / Methods
• 3 About Web 2.0 / Science Publishing

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Science is being read, despite the echoes

• Top Posts
• 1) Keller Sandwiches / Explants
• Xenopus developmental biology research
  technique
• 2) Why Web 2.0 is failing in biology
• Heavily linked and discussed in many blogs

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Be prepared for flamewars
I like hearing from people who are engaged with
the site. Other times, its not so fun running a
visible site. Some people are determined to
deliberately misunderstand much of what they
encounter in life. Sometimes I have a hard time
realizing that thats their problem, not mine.
Jason Kottke Ok David. I can respect
your opinion on the matter. But it gets ugly when
you bring Linux into the fold Blogger Daniel
Lemire In response to a Bench Marks post that
wasnt about Linux at all
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The elephant in the room
Nature's head of web publishing Timo Hannay
confessed that of the firm's myriad Web 2.0
projects, only a couple bring in any
revenue. The Register, March 2007
Marketing managers wont remain clueless
forever. Sooner or later theyll discover that
Web advertising offers almost no ROI. Only two
forms of Web ads actually work search ads and
classified ads (such as eBay and real estate
listings). Jacob Nielsen
Greater than 60 of Bench Marks traffic comes
from RSS feed readers.
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Summary

• Understand who your audience is, and why you are
  blogging
• Blogging is a great way to gain exposure for your
  material
• Understand the nature of the online community and
  be prepared to deal with it

From http//xkcd.com/