In the aftermath of PepsiGate, it might be difficult to find some of your favorite ScienceBloggers. Here's a handy list (muchas gracias to PalMD and Carl Zimmer):
Causabon's Book (now The Chatelaine's Keys)
Culture Dish
Highly Allochthonous
Laelaps
Myrmecos
Neuron Culture
The Primate Diaries (mostly on hiatus)
The Quantum Pontiff
Scicurious
Science After Sunclipse
By my calculations, that's nearly 12% of their bloggers gone in a flash. I do hope it makes the Powers that Be think about how they should treat a precious resource like the folks who provide content for their site and draw in the readers. But knowing corporate minds the way I do, I doubt it will make them think any such thing. Not for long, and certainly not deeply.
16 July, 2010
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6 comments:
ERV had a somewhat different view on that topic...
What was the benefit of being on Science Blogs, BTW? I never could figure it out. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of group activity or promotion going on.
Her argument, when you strip out all the cussing ;-), seems to be basically that the reaction to Pepsico was way out of proportion given the lack-of-reaction to more problematic (but less obviously-corporate, I guess) corporate blogs which had appeared in SB in the past.
She also made a couple of other side points about specific things said by departing bloggers.
I haven't had a chance to read the comments in detail to see if anyone has made any good counters to her arguments. I haven't seen any other blog posts commenting on her opinions on that issue, but my reading of SB blogs is far from exhaustive.
Also, to answer your first question: SB gives bloggers moneys (from ad revenue) in proportion to the popularity of their blogs. PZ talks about it occasionally -- his blog is by far the most popular, and he says it helps with the bills but he couldn't live on it (iirc).
I think one of the things ERV missed in all the shouting was that PepsiGate, for many Sciblings, was just a very annoying straw that broke the C. bactrianus's back. Ah, well.
As for what the benefit was, traffic. Not to mention that super-awesome ScienceBlogs homepage that led me to a lot of blogs I'd never otherwise have discovered. And for folks like me who read from work, it's far easier to remember one website and then be able to choose a blog from a dropdown than remember ten thousand separate blog URLs. Suppose it is, alas, time for me to learn how to use a feed...
Yes, I got that, Woozle, but I think that ERV was missing the point. Dana kinda filled in one of the blanks there. The other point she didn't seem to be addressing was that what some of those folks were worried about was the direction the Pepsi decision might have led. Citing particular instances when some blogger may have written something stupid, or something that has commercial implications, doesn't really address that. It struck them as a change of policy.
Darn those complex issues! How dare they have more than one side, so I can't just agree firmly with one of them and reject everyone else as idiots? *shakes fist*
More srsly: Wow, a controversy where both sides actually have honest points to make. Cool!
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