Science SN are far from getting the critical mass
Once again, an excellent review (including important players’ interviews) by David Bradley about the low adoption of social networks by Scientists.
If uptake is “up to 88%” within the business world, “a mere 1 in 7 research scientists use such tools as part of their work“.
“We are just now in the early evolution of scientific networks” says a pro. Other think “that the pure social networking sites for researchers just don’t work“.
Some services have reached good score in terms of members enrollement. “But, despite their best efforts and a lot of hard work, I’m sure many of them recognise that they are yet to reach a critical mass of the kind achieved by an offline networking community, such as the American Chemical Society, for instance.”
Arguments are well known: no career incentives, no added-value, no killer-application, no time to waste, too many registration to do, etc.
Read the full article:
Bradley, David. Gen-F scientists ignoring social networking. Online (october 7, 2009): http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/gen-f-scientists-ignoring-social-networking.hml
Thanks for the shout out. It seems to be a sensitive, but safe, topic for scientists to discuss. The people who run the networks seem to have the most passionate things to say about these online tools, as opposed to the scientists, most of whom seem not fussed either way about their existence.
sciencebase
October 9, 2009 at 6:35 am