The Nature Blog Network is the web's largest congregation of natural history enthusiasts and one of the finest places to find new bloggy reading. This week NBN interviews me as part of their Featured Blog series:
Whatâs the best thing about blogging?
Blogging is instantaneous. I can respond to new scientific papers as I read them, for example. This might not sound like much, but you have to understand the traditional scientific publishing model. In the old system if I wanted to react to a paper, Iâd submit a letter or a review to the journal, itâd go through peer-review, and 8 months later an edited version that no one cares about would be published. Itâs glacially slow, and really not that appropriate for short opinions. The blog has opened up a new niche for rapid, informal coverage. Of course, there are weeks when grants are due, or lab work backs up, when I could do without the extra pressure of having to generate new content.
I think you should try podcasting sometime. Or posting more videos on youtube. Those were nice.
Thanks MILTA. That's a great idea, but at the moment I'm learning that video is rather more time-consuming than still photography, so these are liable to be occasional projects.
Alex is famous!!