Tag: Socialtimes.com

TED: “If Advertising Is So Great, Why The Hell Is It Largely Failing On The Web?”

TED is inspiring advertisers to go above and beyond with their video marketing campaigns with the Ads Worth Spreading Challenge. The challenge, which was announced yesterday on the TED blog, is inviting advertisers to “reinvent, inspire and engage audiences” by redefining video advertising. In his Ad Week address, TED’s curator Chris Anderson said, “If advertising is so great, why the hell is it largely failing on the web today?” Advertisers—TED is asking you to prove Anderson wrong by submitting the best video marketing campaigns you can muster up!

Advertisers, brands and anyone else in the business community are invited to submit their inspirational, creative and amazing video ad campaigns by January 10, 2011. The ten best campaigns will be selected by a panel of judges (not yet announced) and will be premiered at TED2011 and will also appear on TED.com. That’s quite a way to start of an online video campaign, don’t you think?


TED is inspiring advertisers to go above and beyond with their video marketing campaigns with the Ads Worth Spreading Challenge.  The challenge, which was announced yesterday on the TED blog, is inviting advertisers to “reinvent, inspire and engage audiences” by redefining video advertising.  In his Ad Week address, TED’s curator Chris Anderson said, “If advertising is so great, why the hell is it largely failing on the web today?”  Advertisers—TED is asking you to prove Anderson wrong by submitting the best video marketing campaigns you can muster up!

Advertisers, brands and anyone else in the business community are invited to submit their inspirational, creative and amazing video ad campaigns by January 10, 2011.  The ten best campaigns will be selected by a panel of judges (not yet announced) and will be premiered at TED2011 and will also appear on TED.com.  That’s quite a way to start of an online video campaign, don’t you think? Leer más “TED: “If Advertising Is So Great, Why The Hell Is It Largely Failing On The Web?””

Samsung Social Media Manager Explains the Social In Their New Website [Interview]

This is a guest post by Ekaterina Walter, a Social Media Strategist with Intel Corporation.

Samsung has just launched their new, fully redesigned Consumer Website. I immediately gravitated to the clean, customer-centric look and new social functionalities right there on the home page, and wanted to learn a bit more about how they achieved it. To do that, I interviewed Esteban Contreras, Social Media Manager at Samsung to find out company’s motivations and a little bit more about this project.

“Instead of linking out,” says Esteban “we wanted to bring the conversations and the word of mouth to our site.”

You can find everything right on the home page: conversations (you can ask and answer questions on twitter), Facebook integrations (you can see the most liked products and articles), photos uploaded by customers, video created by Samsung, reviews are brought to life and filtered by the most helpful, and buzz from all over the web about the company and their products.

Ekaterina: What are the main goals of the new Samsung homepage?

Esteban: One of our goals was to drive greater engagement and satisfaction by being more customer-centric and socially relevant. The new Samsung homepage enhances the brand experience by making it more about people, especially our customers. It also provides a more seamless, authentic, and even human brand experience, that is driven much more on consumer participation than on simply showcasing products. It also makes it easier and fun for people to find what they’re looking for, while providing opportunities to engage with us and with each other.

Another major goal was to keep pace with the speed of changes in digital technology & consumer expectations. Our new homepage, and our entire new web site, is in many ways a celebration of a strengthened connection between us and them, and the two-way conversations that have only just begun.


This is a guest post by Ekaterina Walter, a Social Media Strategist with Intel Corporation.

Samsung has just launched their new, fully redesigned Consumer Website. I immediately gravitated to the clean, customer-centric look and new social functionalities right there on the home page, and wanted to learn a bit more about how they achieved it.  To do that, I interviewed Esteban Contreras, Social Media Manager at Samsung to find out company’s motivations and a little bit more about this project.

“Instead of linking out,” says Esteban “we wanted to bring the conversations and the word of mouth to our site.”

You can find everything right on the home page: conversations (you can ask and answer questions on twitter), Facebook integrations (you can see the most liked products and articles), photos uploaded by customers, video created by Samsung, reviews are brought to life and filtered by the most helpful, and buzz from all over the web about the company and their products.

Ekaterina: What are the main goals of the new Samsung homepage?

Esteban: One of our goals was to drive greater engagement and satisfaction by being more customer-centric and socially relevant. The new Samsung homepage enhances the brand experience by making it more about people, especially our customers. It also provides a more seamless, authentic, and even human brand experience, that is driven much more on consumer participation than on simply showcasing products. It also makes it easier and fun for people to find what they’re looking for, while providing opportunities to engage with us and with each other.

Another major goal was to keep pace with the speed of changes in digital technology & consumer expectations. Our new homepage, and our entire new web site, is in many ways a celebration of a strengthened connection between us and them, and the two-way conversations that have only just begun. Leer más “Samsung Social Media Manager Explains the Social In Their New Website [Interview]”

The Mobile Marketing Dictionary

In today’s mobile application world, the terminology and technology can move faster than the creative thinkers and businesses, and we at Social Times thought we could help by putting together the Mobile Marketing Dictionary. The dictionary has all the terms that you’re going to encounter as you try to buy advertising on mobile applications, publish advertising on your own mobile application or get installations for your mobile app. Read the dictionary below and please let us know if there’s a term you’re curious about or one we missed.

Check out the mobile marketing dictionary…


http://www.socialtimes.com/mobile-marketing-dictionary/

In today’s mobile application world, the terminology and technology can move faster than the creative thinkers and businesses, and we at Social Times thought we could help by putting together the Mobile Marketing Dictionary.  The dictionary has all the terms that you’re going to encounter as you try to buy advertising on mobile applications, publish advertising on your own mobile application or get installations for your mobile app.  Read the dictionary below and please let us know if there’s a term you’re curious about or one we missed.

Check out the mobile marketing dictionary… Leer más “The Mobile Marketing Dictionary”

Social News Curation: Simplifying or Adding to our Social Media Overload?

Social news curation is one of the latest social media tools to promise to make our online lives easier, more streamlined, and much more manageable. But does it live up to the hype? We take a detailed look at the top three social news curation tools to see whether they truly organize the news coming from our social networks, or just add another layer of logins, confused layouts, and information-overload to our social networking experience. Read on for the verdict on social news curation.

For those who have yet to experiment with these tools, social news curation is a service that gathers and displays all of the news happening on your social network. Two of the three social news curation services below focus on Twitter, pulling out links and displaying them for you in a newspaper format. The third accesses both Facebook and Twitter, and displays the media/news shared on these networks in a magazine format.


Posted by Lauren Dugan

Social news curation is one of the latest social media tools to promise to make our online lives easier, more streamlined, and much more manageable. But does it live up to the hype? We take a detailed look at the top three social news curation tools to see whether they truly organize the news coming from our social networks, or just add another layer of logins, confused layouts, and information-overload to our social networking experience. Read on for the verdict on social news curation.

For those who have yet to experiment with these tools, social news curation is a service that gathers and displays all of the news happening on your social network. Two of the three social news curation services below focus on Twitter, pulling out links and displaying them for you in a newspaper format. The third accesses both Facebook and Twitter, and displays the media/news shared on these networks in a magazine format. Leer más “Social News Curation: Simplifying or Adding to our Social Media Overload?”

Social Media Promotion: It’s About ‘Stickiness’

Posted by Darko Johnson

We all know that content is the most important thing when it comes down to having a REALLY successful viral campaign. Sure, you’ll need some promotion to help with the initial push of the campaign but as your campaign gets more popular, you’ll notice the increasing power of content to retain your readers, users and buyers. How do we classify what content works versus that which doesn’t? Well, according to Dan Heath in his book Made to Stick, it’s all about stickiness.

Personally, I’m shocked by the amount of garbage advice on social media, the self-proclaimed ‘social media gurus’ who have virtually n0 experience in getting viral on some social media/bookmarking website (Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon). As for me, I’ve been featured on many of those sites so I I must be doing something right, no 🙂

What’s stickiness? In his book, Made to Stick, Dan Heath describes several principles that make ideas spread and ‘stick’ to peoples’ minds. I found it amazing how powerful those principles were and yet, nobody bothered to translate them into the online world and see how they can be applied . I’ll try to do that here; some of the most important principles there are…


Posted by Darko Johnson

We all know that content is the most important thing when it comes down to having a REALLY successful viral campaign. Sure, you’ll need some promotion to help with the initial push of the campaign but as your campaign gets more popular, you’ll notice the increasing power of content to retain your readers, users and buyers.  How do we classify what content works versus that which doesn’t?  Well, according to Dan Heath in his book Made to Stick, it’s all about stickiness.

Personally, I’m shocked by the amount of garbage advice on social media, the self-proclaimed ‘social media gurus’ who have virtually n0 experience in getting viral on some social media/bookmarking website (Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon). As for me, I’ve been featured on many of those sites so I I must be doing something right, no :)

What’s stickiness? In his book, Made to Stick, Dan Heath describes several principles that make ideas spread and ‘stick’ to peoples’ minds. I found it amazing how powerful those principles were and yet, nobody bothered to translate them into the online world and see how they can be applied . I’ll try to do that here; some of the most important principles there are… Leer más “Social Media Promotion: It’s About ‘Stickiness’”

Huggies, Tumblr and… Kidnapped Babies? Why You Should Pay Attention To Your Social Media Campaigns

Huggies recently released their interesting new High Chair Critics social marketing campaign by leveraging the Tumblr microblogging service, and if their front page is anything, it’s a lesson that big brands should pay close attention to who’s running their social media campaign. The first entry on the page is a reference to “the most famous babies of all time”, but for some reason, instead of showing a picture of a cute baby model, it’s a missing person poster of Chas. A. Lindbergh, Jr,, who was kidnapped in 1932. Read on for more ways to avoid messing up your social media campaign.


Posted by Neil Vidyarthi

huggieslogo Huggies recently released their interesting new High Chair Critics social marketing campaign by leveraging the Tumblr microblogging service, and if their front page is anything, it’s a lesson that big brands should pay close attention to who’s running their social media campaign.  The first entry on the page is a reference to “the most famous babies of all time”, but for some reason, instead of showing a picture of a cute baby model, it’s a missing person poster of Chas. A. Lindbergh, Jr,, who was kidnapped in 1932.  Read on for more ways to avoid messing up your social media campaign.

The key problem here is that the posts on the site seem very scrapped together, and it’s clear that one of the various anonymous writers didn’t do the extra work to ensure that the included image was in sync with the Huggies brand. Leer más “Huggies, Tumblr and… Kidnapped Babies? Why You Should Pay Attention To Your Social Media Campaigns”

Girls in Tech Debate: A Publicity Hoax?

Last week a big debate began circling the tech community over women and entrepreneurship. Some said it was still a man’s world while others pointed the finger back at women for not having more female risk-takers. This all a few days after an article titled Is There Anything Good About Men, resurfaced the interwebs, then Michael Arrington in this article proclaimed how TechCrunch goes above and beyond to find women in tech “…we do spend an extraordinary amount of time finding those qualified women and asking them to speak.” It was also noted that half executive staff were woman. The conclusion of the article went something like: we try to find women in tech, there’s tons of money for them, female entrepreneurs just don’t exist. Several times it was mentioned how TechCrunch loves to cover women founded companies but the topic was left open “…And when you do start your company, we’ll cover it. Promise.”


Posted by Ellie Cachette

Last week a big debate began circling the tech community over women and entrepreneurship. Some said it was still a man’s world while others pointed the finger back at women for not having more female risk-takers. This all a few days after an article titled Is There Anything Good About Men, resurfaced the interwebs, then Michael Arrington in this article proclaimed how TechCrunch goes above and beyond to find women in tech “…we do spend an extraordinary amount of time finding those qualified women and asking them to speak.” It was also noted that half executive staff were woman.  The conclusion of the article went something like: we try to find women in tech, there’s tons of money for them, female entrepreneurs just don’t exist.  Several times it was mentioned how TechCrunch loves to cover women founded companies but the topic was left open “…And when you do start your company, we’ll cover it.  Promise.”

Leer más “Girls in Tech Debate: A Publicity Hoax?”

What’s New in Consumer Web

[Más…]

FollowStyle has entered the shopping experience market creating a hip network of fashion minded people to post their outfits, tag products and truly rate the sexiness of clothes. Pretty soon when you are shopping at a retail store you will be getting text (SMS) coupons, can take digital photos while trying things on and even have apps to make suggestions of how to look better or create a more ‘personalized’ look. How scary is that to make the clothing and fashion experience a wide open show for the web? To some that might be appealing, to others concerning. Even better, what are the retail shops going to do about this dilemma? As a corporation how do you cater to what is becoming a social media divide? Old school vs. new school.

What we learned this week about Consumer Web:

* Privacy is not sexy
* Advertising standards are increasing
* Mobile is the new internet


by Ellie Cachette

marijuana.leafConsumer advocacy groups seem upset with concerns about internet privacy, while research indicates the average consumer will and is sharing more information than ever if they are promised something of value in return.  Target starts selling Facebook credits gift cards and we already know how 7-11 stores are pimped out in Farmville branding. No one is talking about Foursquare anymore as all eyes were on Apple this week. On the bright side you can locate the best medicinal marijuana in your neighborhood using Weedmaps.com

Leer más “What’s New in Consumer Web”

YouTube Charts Now Searchable By Category

On the YouTube Charts page of the video site, viewers still have the opportunity to search Most Viewed, Most Subscribed and Most Liked videos by Today, This Week, This Month and All time. However, an added feature lets users browse the highest-ranking videos according to category as well. Users can browse the top videos in All categories, Autos & Vehicles, Comedy, Education, Entertainment, Film & Animation, Gaming, How To & Style, Music, News & Politics, Nonprofits & Activism, People & Blogs, Pets & Animals, Science & Technology, Sports, and Travel & Events.


Posted by Megan O’Neill

YouTube LogoWhen YouTube launched YouTube Charts last month, a new interface that ranks the top videos on YouTube, they turned to viewers to ask what features they would like to see added to Charts.  One of the most common questions that viewers had was, “Why doesn’t YouTube Charts rank videos according to categories?”  YouTube has now responded to these viewers by adding new functionality to their Charts, giving viewers the opportunity to search by category. Leer más “YouTube Charts Now Searchable By Category”

ALERT: Nearly 3 Million Malicious Fake YouTube Pages Indexed on Google

According to in-the-cloud security leader Zscaler, Google is currently indexing nearly 3 million malicious fake YouTube pages leading to fake anti-virus (AV) downloads. The fake YouTube pages appear when users do a Google search for the term “Hot Video”. Clicking on the links lead to something that looks like a YouTube video page before an invisible Flash layer directs viewers to a fake AV page.

According to Julien Sobrier at Zscaler, “The fake YouTube video page is covered by an invisible layer and the Flash object automatically redirects the user to a fake AV page. If the user has Flash disabled, the page becomes harmless. The URL of the Flash file, hosted on a different domain, is obfuscated with Javascript.” Sobrier says that several different domains are being used to host fake AV software. These domains include www2.soft-analysis79.co.cc and www1.selfprotection20.co.cc.

The fact that nearly 3 million of these malicious pages are showing up in Google results shows that they are virtually undetectable. In fact, only 11% of anti-virus vendors are detecting these pages at this time, according to Sobrier. Therefore, if you are searching for “Hot Videos” you should beware of the URLs in Google before you click on them. Also, if you see search results that look like those below when you search for videos in Google, don’t click on them.


Posted by Megan O’Neill

AlertAccording to in-the-cloud security leader Zscaler, Google is currently indexing nearly 3 million malicious fake YouTube pages leading to fake anti-virus (AV) downloads.  The fake YouTube pages appear when users do a Google search for the term “Hot Video”.  Clicking on the links lead to something that looks like a YouTube video page before an invisible Flash layer directs viewers to a fake AV page.

According to Julien Sobrier at Zscaler, “The fake YouTube video page is covered by an invisible layer and the Flash object automatically redirects the user to a fake AV page.  If the user has Flash disabled, the page becomes harmless.  The URL of the Flash file, hosted on a different domain, is obfuscated with Javascript.”  Sobrier says that several different domains are being used to host fake AV software.  These domains include www2.soft-analysis79.co.cc and www1.selfprotection20.co.cc.

The fact that nearly 3 million of these malicious  pages are showing up in Google results shows that they are virtually undetectable.  In fact, only 11% of anti-virus vendors are detecting these pages at this time, according to Sobrier.  Therefore, if you are searching for “Hot Videos” you should beware of the URLs in Google before you click on them.  Also, if you see search results that look like those below when you search for videos in Google, don’t click on them.

Google Hot Video Search Leer más “ALERT: Nearly 3 Million Malicious Fake YouTube Pages Indexed on Google”

Is YouTube Citizen Journalism Desensitizing Us?

YouTube has recently become one of the most popular mediums for spreading the word about human rights violations around the globe, from the death of female protester Neda Agha-Soltan after last year’s election in Iran to police brutality in Zanzibar and human rights abuses in Russian prisons. But while this influx of amateur footage of human rights violations is certainly giving us a better idea of the inhumanity going on in other parts of the world, I can’t help but wonder whether these snuff-like videos aren’t desensitizing us to these atrocities. The more videos we see of people being killed, beaten and treated like animals the less shocking it is. Is human rights citizen journalism desensitizing us?

YouTube has been working on a blog series with WITNESS, human rights video advocacy and training organization, and in their most recent post they ask YouTubers for their opinions on human rights in a series of questions. One of the most interesting questions that they ask regards our desensitization to human rights footage:

“In the past, in many countries, human rights images were largely filtered through the news media. But today, nearly everyone has seen a video or photo on the Internet that has made them aware of injustice. With access to these kinds of images getting easier, and more stories appearing from more places, the sheer quantity of this content risks either overwhelming viewers, or desensitizing us to its value. How do you think people can stay alert to the power of these images without becoming immune to them?”


Posted by Megan O’Neill

Every Human Has RightsYouTube has recently become one of the most popular mediums for spreading the word about human rights violations around the globe, from the death of female protester Neda Agha-Soltan after last year’s election in Iran to police brutality in Zanzibar and human rights abuses in Russian prisons.  But while this influx of amateur footage of human rights violations is certainly giving us a better idea of the inhumanity going on in other parts of the world, I can’t help but wonder whether these snuff-like videos aren’t desensitizing us to these atrocities.  The more videos we see of people being killed, beaten and treated like animals the less shocking it is.  Is human rights citizen journalism desensitizing us?

YouTube has been working on a blog series with WITNESS, human rights video advocacy and training organization, and in their most recent post they ask YouTubers for their opinions on human rights in a series of questions.  One of the most interesting questions that they ask regards our desensitization to human rights footage:

“In the past, in many countries, human rights images were largely filtered through the news media.  But today, nearly everyone has seen a video or photo on the Internet that has made them aware of injustice.  With access to these kinds of images getting easier, and more stories appearing from more places, the sheer quantity of this content risks either overwhelming viewers, or desensitizing us to its value.  How do you think people can stay alert to the power of these images without becoming immune to them?” Leer más “Is YouTube Citizen Journalism Desensitizing Us?”

OMG: Bieber Trounces Gaga in Twitter List Rankings

In last week’s bucket of ongoing API enhancements, Twitter provided a means to determine the number of lists in which a user is listed.

This is yet another way to measure popularity, fame, influence, status, etc., and Fan Page List has implemented this count on its site and we’ll show you some results after the jump.

The top ten ranked by number of lists is somewhat different than the top ten by total number of Twitter followers. Demi Lovato, CNN Breaking News and Selena Gomez appear when sorted by number of lists, but not when sorted by number of followers. On that list, they are replaced by Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and John Mayer.


Posted by Neil Glassman

FanPageListLogo3c-20sqIn last week’s bucket of ongoing API enhancements, Twitter provided a means to determine the number of lists in which a user is listed.

This is yet another way to measure popularity, fame, influence, status, etc., and Fan Page List has implemented this count on its site and we’ll show you some results after the jump.

The top ten ranked by number of lists is somewhat different than the top ten by total number of Twitter followers. Demi Lovato, CNN Breaking News and Selena Gomez appear when sorted by number of lists, but not when sorted by number of followers. On that list, they are replaced by Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and John Mayer. Leer más “OMG: Bieber Trounces Gaga in Twitter List Rankings”

10 Most Dangerous Celebrities…Online

Feeling risky? Go ahead, type Cameron Diaz or Julia Roberts in your Internet search browser, says computer security firm McAfee Inc.

Those two starlets top the company’s annual list of the 10 most dangerous celebrities to search for on the Web.

Diaz and Roberts likely top this year’s because of their recent blockbuster movies, “Knight and Day” for Diaz and “Eat, Pray, Love” for Roberts, and tabloid headline prominence, according to the company.

“Cybercriminals follow the same hot topics as consumers, and create traps based on the latest trends,” said Dave Marcus, security researcher for McAfee Labs, which conducted the study.

This year’s research found that consumers searching for Cameron Diaz pictures or downloads ended up with a 10 percent chance of landing instead on a website with threats like spyware, adware, spam or viruses.

Diaz replaced Jessica Biel, who fell to the third spot, at the top of the list. Supermodel Gisele Bunchden and actor Brad Pitt round out the rest of the top five.


Posted by Katie Kindelan

Feeling risky?  Go ahead, type Cameron Diaz or Julia Roberts in your Internet search browser, says computer security firm McAfee Inc.

Those two starlets top the company’s annual list of the 10 most dangerous celebrities to search for on the Web.

Diaz and Roberts likely top this year’s because of their recent blockbuster movies, “Knight and Day” for Diaz and “Eat, Pray, Love” for Roberts, and tabloid headline prominence, according to the company.

“Cybercriminals follow the same hot topics as consumers, and create traps based on the latest trends,” said Dave Marcus, security researcher for McAfee Labs, which conducted the study.

This year’s research found that consumers searching for Cameron Diaz pictures or downloads ended up with a 10 percent chance of landing instead on a website with threats like spyware, adware, spam or viruses.

Diaz replaced Jessica Biel, who fell to the third spot, at the top of the list.  Supermodel Gisele Bunchden and actor Brad Pitt round out the rest of the top five. Leer más “10 Most Dangerous Celebrities…Online”

Introducing Social Times PRO: Detailed Virtual Goods and Social Games Reports and Conference Access

Posted by Neil Vidyarthi

socialtimes-pro[1] Over the last year, Social Times has been undergoing quite the transformation: We’ve grown our roster of contributors to 10 talented writers, we’ve made updates to our statistics technology and we’ve welcomed an unprecedented number of new readers. With this continued success, we’ve refined our goals and one of our main goals is to deliver insight and value to our readers. For that reason, I’m proud to introduce Social Times PRO, a new service dedicated to providing readers with insightful research reports on social games, virtual goods and Facebook, but the service also gives you access to all of our Social Times conferences and events. Read more after the jump!


Posted by Neil Vidyarthi

socialtimes-pro[1] Over the last year, Social Times has been undergoing quite the transformation:  We’ve grown our roster of contributors to 10 talented writers, we’ve made updates to our statistics technology and we’ve welcomed an unprecedented number of new readers.  With this continued success, we’ve refined our goals and one of our main goals is to deliver insight and value to our readers.  For that reason, I’m proud to introduce Social Times PRO, a new service dedicated to providing readers with insightful research reports on social games, virtual goods and Facebook, but the service also gives you access to all of our Social Times conferences and events.  Read more after the jump! Leer más “Introducing Social Times PRO: Detailed Virtual Goods and Social Games Reports and Conference Access”

Scitable: Science Made Social [Interview]

Education is increasingly becoming digital, using social networks, videos and collaborative online tools to enhance the learning experience. One of the largest online social education communities is Scitable. A hybrid between a virtual classroom, a social network and a scientific journal repository, Scitable boasts several hundreds of thousand users around the world. We recently got to speak with Vikram Savkar, SVP and Publishing Director at Nature Publishing, about what Scitable is, what it offers to students, and the future of social education.

Can you give us a brief background of Scitable? Where did the idea for a collaborative science community come from?

Scitable is a spin-off of Nature Publishing Group, one of the world’s leading publishers of scientific research journals. Scitable is a collaborative online learning space for science, aimed at formal learners at the undergraduate, graduate, and high school levels and informal learners of all ages and from all walks of life.

To a large extent, the idea for a collaborative science education community came right out of the way science itself works. Science isn’t an isolated discipline — it’s inherently social. All scientists pick up data and conclusions from peers and extend them with new insight of their own; and most scientists directly collaborate with peers when developing their theories or designing experiments. We realized that a powerful solution for training scientists has to foster some degree of this collaboration. Otherwise it’s only educating students about the facts, not the process, of science.


Posted by Lauren Dugan

scitable Education is increasingly becoming digital, using social networks, videos and collaborative online tools to enhance the learning experience. One of the largest online social education communities is Scitable. A hybrid between a virtual classroom, a social network and a scientific journal repository, Scitable boasts several hundreds of thousand users around the world. We recently got to speak with Vikram Savkar, SVP and Publishing Director at Nature Publishing, about what Scitable is, what it offers to students, and the future of social education.

Can you give us a brief background of Scitable? Where did the idea for a collaborative science community come from?

Scitable is a spin-off of Nature Publishing Group, one of the world’s leading publishers of scientific research journals. Scitable is a collaborative online learning space for science, aimed at formal learners at the undergraduate, graduate, and high school levels and informal learners of all ages and from all walks of life.

To a large extent, the idea for a collaborative science education community came right out of the way science itself works. Science isn’t an isolated discipline — it’s inherently social. All scientists pick up data and conclusions from peers and extend them with new insight of their own; and most scientists directly collaborate with peers when developing their theories or designing experiments. We realized that a powerful solution for training scientists has to foster some degree of this collaboration. Otherwise it’s only educating students about the facts, not the process, of science. Leer más “Scitable: Science Made Social [Interview]”