Can Twitter, Facebook, and Other Social Media Drive Downloads, Citations?
A brief review of studies linking social media and article-level performance.
Blindspot — Was a Key Factor Missed in the Study of Viral Lies?
A recent study of the spread of lies on Twitter is an important advance, but the authors missed a potentially huge factor, and one we can’t ignore.
Fixing Instead of Breaking, Part One — Open Citations
With so much broken by the Internet, we may be moving into a mode of fixing things. Are open citations part of the solution, or more of the problem?
Book Review: “Technically Wrong,” by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
A new book explores how biases and broken systems get built into technology products and platforms.
All the News That Fits — What’s Really Driving Altmetric’s Top 100 Articles List?
The Altmetric “flower” is an icon, and the annual Top 100 list a much-anticipated event. But is the flower really a stalk?
About Face — Scholarly Publishing and Social Media Regulation
A possible consequence of moves to more tightly regulate social media companies may be they start looking for new investments. And they already have some in scholarly publishing.
What #ColorOurCollections Suggests
Last week’s surprisingly successful social media campaign was a winning event for libraries, archives, and museums.
When Pragmatism Collides With Fundamentalism-PLOS Hikes Publication Fees
Why did such a small price increase arouse such a big reaction from open access advocates?
A Single User Account
Academics’ expectations for user experience are set not by reference to improvements relative to the past but increasingly in comparison with their experiences on consumer internet services and mobile devices. The best solution for research, teaching, and learning would be a single account for each user, controlled by that individual, and accepted portably across services and platforms.
An Archaeology of Discovery
How valuable is the brand? It depends on the ecosystem or publishing epoch. Brands were the hallmark of the print era, but with the advent of new publishing paradigms, brands now compete with other useful means to identify materials.
The Ubiquitous Bookstore
There is much discussion now about creating new online bookstores, especially for academic publishers. Some of these discussions, however, are not aligned with overarching trends on the Internet and risk creating something that appears to be out of date the moment it is launched.
Social Media And Its Impact on Medical Research
A social media campaign may have little (if any) effect on article readership, a recent study reports.
Is Google Now a Publisher Offering Other Publishers an Inadequate Deal?
A Spanish court’s decision around Google News suggests that the barter arrangement with Google and other general search engines — in which they pay nothing to license our content — may have a more viable financial future.
Ask The Chefs: How Do You Stay Informed About Scholarly Publishing?
We often talk about how our customers (a.k.a. users, researchers, authors, readers, etc.) are being overwhelmed by the flood of information available today. Let’s not forget that we are consumers of information as well. How are we handling information overload? […]
Tweaking Twitter
Social media giant (and information tool) Twitter has casually suggested to its users that it might be changing its algorithm. But has it considered what the implications for users might be? The users have and they are worried.