The role of the internet in scientific communications is rapidly evolving. From a mere tool for reading and responding to email, and searching for articles and product information or protocols, we are witnessing its development into a hyper-networked platform that offers excellent opportunities for both scientists and businesses to reach wider audiences, as well as improve communications within their own communities.

Terms such as RSS, atom, XML, trackback or social web, to name just a few, are some of the buzzwords defining Web 2.0. It is all about crosslinking up-to-date content with people. A typical example of a Web 2.0 application is the so-called wiki, derived from the Hawaiian word for ‘fast’, such as the online encyclopaedia ‘Wikipedia’. Wikipedia is particularly noteworthy as it allows people to comment on and edit one another’s text, resulting in the most vital and dynamic encyclopaedia available worldwide. From a technical point of view, the content of a wiki site is selfcrosslinking, meaning that if an author mentions a specific keyword, it links automatically to other relevant pages.

In the early 2000s, wikis were increasingly adopted in businesses as collaborative software. Common uses included project communication, intranets and documentation, and they were initially meant for technical applications. Today, some companies exclusively use wikis as their collaborative software and as a replacement for static intranets. It is, therefore, not difficult to imagine that such novel technologies will also find their way into other sciences, and that laboratories may one day use a wiki-like platform to update their results and experimental protocols, for example.

SCIENTIFIC BLOGS AS A COMMUNICATIONS TOOL

A major advance in scientific communications has been achieved through blogs. A blog, a portmanteau of ‘web log’, is a website in which entries are written in chronological order, just as with online diaries. Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject and combine text, images and links to other blogs and web pages related to their topics. The opportunity for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Blogs can be easily set up and maintained and can allow scientists to reach a potentially global audience, in order to discuss technical and scientific aspects of their work and contact people working in the same field.

Communications managers will also eventually embrace the marketing opportunities opened up by blogs. They can, for example, get in touch directly with scientists at the bench to provide them with solutions for their specific problems and persuade them at a scientific level rather than with marketing jargon. However, this will have to be done carefully and not anonymously in order to avoid offending the dialogue partner. Microsoft, for example, supports a blog from the Microsoft Developer Network, in which developers provide technical details about upcoming products. Perhaps in the near future we will see biotechnology companies dedicating webspace for their own blogs, leading to enhanced customer acquisition and loyalty. At present, blogging is still far from ubiquitous, but it will surely become more and more popular as users get better acquainted with it.