It’s been a slow process, but the words ‘expertise’ and ‘research’ are now being used in the same sentence as blogging. A whole new window is opening up with Research Blogging, and Science Blogging.

• ScienceBlogs.com calls itself a ‘digital science salon’ –with features such as The Angry Toxicologist !
• ResearchBlogging.org is another site aggregating blogs from contributors –assigned ‘icons’ to indicate their peer-reviewed status.

Research Blogging calls itself a site for those tired of “science by press release” and needing to find peer-reviewed research.

Why is this worth paying attention to? These are the early signs of scientific rigor being lent to social media. They bring credibility to the strategies we evangelize. Here’s how one science writer, Nick Anthis discusses a study:

“The results were astounding. Across the blogosphere, scientists had started new collaborations, enhanced their scientific work, advanced their careers, been able to communicate science as never before, and had been offered a whole array of new and unique experiences and opportunities in part or in full due to their blogs.”