You definitely can create a list on facebook and send email just to that
list (Go to Compose email and it will say "type the name of a friend, list
or email address." I have created lists but not to the extent I probably
could/should. As a writer I really enjoy facebook for its various social
networking purposes. I have writing colleagues, friends, scientist
colleagues (many of which I "meet" online when they're sources for a story
of mine). I post links to my Animal Planet blogs and articles, and keep
abreast of what others are writing about or doing scientifically, which
helps me get ideas to write about.
Twitter is useful for me to get story ideas (what animal related stories are
"in the news" which is what the Animal Planet blog covers) or for trying to
promote something... (for me it's my writing) or if you want to search for
something "in real time" it's absolutely irreplaceable (such as the info it
provided during the Iran election, or less crucial perhaps but fascinating
nonetheless, the TX State Board of Education hearings about evolution ed).
People tweet through scientific meetings, and such. No doubt people will be
tweeting from Copenhagen. You get a totally different perspective (more like
the one you might get by being there) than you'd get from a news article, or
even a blog. You capture more of the little snippets of conversation, where
sometimes the real "stuff" of interest lies.
And there are a lot of fan pages and groups that have their own discussions.
I haven't gotten much into that aspect of Facebook but know it's there.
And on another note if anyone's interested in my online writing class (it
teaches the ropes of how to write for general interest magazines, and is
geared towards science/environment issues) I have one starting Dec 12th... a
good thing to do over the holidays!! :)
Wendee - bohem...@wendeeholtcamp.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wendee Holtcamp, M.S. Wildlife Ecology ~ @bohemianone
Freelance Writer * Photographer * Bohemian
http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com
http://bohemianadventures.blogspot.com
~~6-wk Online Writing Course Starts Dec 12, 2009 (signup by Dec 5)~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Im Animal Planets news blogger - http://blogs.discovery.com/animal_news
-----Original Message-----
I've joined a few of the various social networks and find them of little
professional value, although I have met up with some old friends and
schoolmates. However it strikes me that this kind of networking could be of
considerable value to scientists, and I am posting to enquire whether any
suitable networks exist. It may of course be that I simply don't know how to
use the networks I belong to.
It would be handy to be able to classify one's friends/colleagues by
interest and to be able to post messages to various specific interest
groups. This seems similar to the idea of lists on Facebook, but I have not
yet found any way to send messages specifically to one or more of these
lists.
Some of these interest groups already exist as formal groups of course, I am
sure that there must be several organised groups dealing with climate
change. On the other hand I doubt that there are groups specifically
interested in vibrio or in ctenophores, so it would have to be an ad hoc
group. I envisage a system where individual scientists would define their
own interest areas and be able to communicate easily with colleagues with
overlapping interests. For example, if I am working on the possibility that
pollution is depressing oxygen levels in some region and this is encouraging
the dominance of jellyfish, I could send it to people I know whom I have
classified as interested in pollution, in hypoxia and in gelatinous
zooplankton, and perhaps to others working in the same region.
Of course some of the existing networks are ideal for a few scientists. I
find Twitter absolutely useless, but for astronomers searching for comets it
must be a fantastic tool.
Anyway, I would welcome any comments and advice on ways in which these
modern networking tools can be used for science. Email lists have certainly
been useful, but I find that in some areas they are too narrowly defined and
structured to work well.
Bill Silvert
