The people, whoever they are, at ScienceBlogs have announced that they’ll be shutting down at the end of the month. I actually should have all my archives, so there’s no worry on that end for me.
The first few years for Seed were pretty flush for a small operation. There were a couple of blogger meet-ups in New York City (and a fair number of ad hoc meet-ups in the San Francisco Bay area, as several of us lived there and many people traveled there). But the Great Recession hit media hard, and that included Seed. Some attrition of bloggers started to occur in 2008 and 2010, and then presumably in an attempt to get more revenue they started a Pepsi sponsored blog, and that caused a further set of defections.
But there are some great blogs still there. Respectful Insolence and Uncertain Principles I’ve followed on and off since the beginning. The latter blog has had some continuity as a science blog since the spring of 2003, so along with Gene Expression it’s been around for 15 years or so.
Here is an article in The New York Times from January 20th of 2006, Science Blogs as a Vehicle for Upscale Ads. I remember where I was then, chilling out in Prospect Heights at my friend’s apartment in New York City. Honestly, a nearly 12-year run is not that bad. Some great journalists started at or grew their careers at ScienceBlogs.
ScienceBlogs’ wiping away of the whole site illustrates the major problem with relying on someone else’s platform to gain scale and synergy. It might be a short-term strategy. Unfortunately, I think the areas of science twitter I’m familiar with are already in steep decline from the vibrant and spirited by collegial conversations dominant between 2010-2015. It’s not quite as far gone as ScienceBlogs’ neglect.
After the Pepsi debacle, many ScienceBlogs moved to Scientopia. Did you ever consider that?
i had already moved to *discover magazine* by then. so no.