Labs

No, really, build your own science blog network. The merits of being on a network are many (community, traffic, search ranking, etc.), but the one that matters the most is the prestige a blogger gains by association with the other bloggers in the network and through being part of a professional organization. The reason for this is straightforward--the first impressions a blogger makes are largely built on split-second judgments, and among the things that can be judged the quickest are appearances and the company you keep . If you're part of a professional looking network that includes another blogger who a reader already judges favorably, you're ahead of the game even before the reader reads word one. That doesn't mean you don't need to still be a good/great blogger to have an impact, you do, but being part of a network is a foot in the door every single day of the year. All you have left to do is raise your game to take advantage of the privileged position being par...

The Virginia Heffernan piece in the NYT Magazine about science blogs (link not necessary for the few people reading this post) has gotten a lot of traction thanks to science bloggers. The reason for this is it represented the opinion of a popular writer printed in a mass media publication, and so responding to it holds the promise of traffic. It also helps that Ms. Heffernan's opinions were not above reproach, giving critics and targets of the piece something to sink their teeth into. However, take that same article and post it word-for-word anonymously on some unknown blog and the reaction it would garner from the science blogging community would be...crickets. Why? Because on its own, Heffernan's article about science blogs is neither insightful, compelling or correct. So not only would it not inspire a response (assuming anyone would bother to read it in its entirety), it would not warrant a correction--were it posted by a nobody on a nowhere site. For this reason I take a d...