tags: twitter, blog carnivals, science writing, nature writing, environment writing, medical writing, publicity
The Carnival Concoction.
Acrylic and Pastel on Pastelbord.
Albert Almondia (2008).
While discussing a twitter account for publicizing Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) blog carnival, my spousal unit proposed a really interesting idea: setting up a general science blog carnival twitter feed that sends out links for a variety of science, environment, nature and medicine-based blog carnivals. So we've done this: the twitter feed is known as SciNatBlogs and it has its own email address where blog owners/hosts can send the URLs for their most recently published blog carnival so it can be tweeted to the public.
We are still working out the details for what sorts of tweets will be sent from this account: will it only be used to tweet URLs for the most recent carnival on the day it is published or will it also be used to tweet appeals for submissions and hosts? How many times will each carnival be tweeted, considering that tweets can be received worldwide?
I am interested to read your thoughts about the most effective use of this twitter feed as we develop it to promote communication with the public about science, the environment, nature and medicine. If you are the host or manager of a blog carnival and you think it fits the spirit of this twitter feed, please either leave a message here or contact us at this email address so the URL of the most recent edition can be tweeted.
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Comments
Neat. I set up a list under the Carnival of the Blue feed a while back, but at the time all I could find was the Blue and the Trees.
http://twitter.com/#/list/carnivalblue/natsciblogcarnivals
Posted by: Jason R | March 2, 2010 9:38 AM
Great idea, Grrlscientist. I definitely want I and the Bird to be a part of this feed.
Posted by: Mike | March 2, 2010 9:42 AM
We've been doing this for some time with the credible, rotating health and medicine blog carnivals:
http://twitter.com/biomedcarnivals
We aggregate (and Tweet!) 8 individual carnival feeds, including Grand Rounds, Change of Shift, Cancer Research, Encephalon, SurgeXperiences, Medlib's Round, Health Wonk Review and Palliative Care GR, shown separately here:
http://www.highlighthealth.net/carnivals.php
Posted by: Walter Jessen | March 2, 2010 9:51 AM
Oh, and there is also the Carny category at Nature Blog Network http://natureblognetwork.com/blog/category/carnivals/
Posted by: Jason R | March 2, 2010 10:06 AM
here's what i am envisioning so far:
hosts or managers ("owners") of the various blog carnivals that fall under the topical umbrella of "science, environment, nature and medicine" will add the SciNatBlogs email address to their email lists so the URLs of the most recent blog carnival is sent out to SciNatBlogs' email account as soon as the latest edition of their carnival is published. there will be several of us who monitor this email address and tweet URLs for carnivals.
the blogs that i think will use likely this twitter feed are:
Scientia Pro Publica (of course)
Encephalon
Brain Blogging
A Mental Health Carnival
SurgExperiences
Grand Rounds
Cancer Research Blog Carnival
Linnaeus' Legacy (is this one still being published?)
Carnival of the Blue
Circus of the Spineless
An Inordinate Fondness
I and the Bird
Festival of the Trees
Berry Go Round
Friday Ark (this is animal photography; should it be included?)
if there are other blog carnivals that you think should be included, please do list them here, along with contact info (or pass this URL on to the relevant people) so we can find out if they'd be interested in being included in this.
Posted by: "GrrlScientist" | March 2, 2010 10:52 AM
Hey, I just woke up here in CA. Count Carnival of Evolution in.
[email protected]
carnivalofevolution.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Bjørn Østman | March 2, 2010 11:43 AM
I'll tell Grrl off for forgetting Carnival of Evolution!
It would be good to make this at least semi-automatic. Walter emailed us to describe what he does (thanks, Walter!), but I haven't had time to look into it.
Grrl has just arrived in the cafe, so we'll talk about it now.
Posted by: Bob O'H | March 2, 2010 11:50 AM
The Giant's Shoulders: http://ontheshouldersofgiants.wordpress.com/
Posted by: Coturnix | March 2, 2010 3:45 PM
What about Carnival of Space? (I don't manage it, but I hosted once.)
Posted by: jublke | March 2, 2010 6:54 PM
Friday Ark (this is animal photography; should it be included?)
As the regular host of the Friday Ark I, of course, vote yes!
While the Ark tends to have more cats than anything else we have tried hard to include all the birds, herps, PZ's squishy things, and more that fit well in several of your categories.
If we could identify enough invertebrate posts they would lead off the list of boardings instead of the kitties.
Anyway, please do include us.
Thanks,
Steve
Posted by: Steve | March 2, 2010 11:34 PM
Scientiae? Diversity in STEM carnival? Four Stone Hearth? Carnival of Mathematics? Carnival of the Green? Change of Shift? Is Boneyard still around?
Posted by: Coturnix | March 3, 2010 11:59 AM
As Walter points out, The Cancer Research Blog Carnival (http://cancer-carnival.blogspot.com) is part of his aggregated health carnival feed, but we'd love to be a part of this as well.
(and stay tuned for the latest edition later today)
Posted by: Kamel | March 5, 2010 2:41 PM
Thanks for sending the message, Kamel - you have been tweeted.
We should try and sort out how we run this thing, but at the moment emailing or tweeting the account will get you noticed (email is better, especially if you're in the US or the Antipodes: time zones and all that).
Posted by: Bob O'H | March 5, 2010 3:48 PM