Academia.Edu – Like Facebook, but for academics
I’m not convinced with Academia.edu. One of the reasons why I joined Facebook was to reconnect with scholars all over the world who are also my friends. I completely understand the rationale behind Academia.edu, but the search engines, the API and the way in which the data are handled and the requests extract data are actually quite cumbersome. I don’t know if the reason behind is the way in which the portal is programmed or the database structure, but really, it’s not enticing at all to join.
For example, on the news link, I don’t want to see who added new photos and articles and stuff (kind of the News Feed on Facebook). I want the developer to tell me what’s going on with the application. Also, I really don’t like the interface itself. I like how the trees are created, but seriously, it shows very little imagination. I am not very thrilled with the application, even if some of the world’s best scholars are there (I have seen Paul Krugman there).
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Dear Raul,
I think any attempt to better connect the academic community is already a step forward. However, I, too, am not sure if a pure social network will solve the most urgent issues researchers face. I’m the co-founder of Mendeley (www.mendeley.com) and we try to approach the area of “social research tools” from a different angle: Our aim is to create a “Last.fm for research” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzJbrA9EY7A), where the research network around you emerges based on data, and not on already existing relationships you have.
Mendeley itself is free academic software to manage & share research papers and a research network to manage your papers online, discover research trends and connect to like-minded researchers. By anonymously aggregating usage statistics we are hopefully able at some point in time to help researchers with finding relevant content and contacts (similar to Last.fm). At the same time Mendeley intially does not depend on any network effect, because the research paper management and sharing functionality is not depending on a large network of peers.
Let me know what you think and what you would imagine to be a good solution for your needs (http://feedback.mendeley.com).
Best wishes
Jan
jan.reichelt@mendeley.com