…and this is a 
Hey, this is good news: Nature included a short opinion piece from a stem cell biologist on his experiences blogging, writing the Knoepfler Lab Stem Cell Blog — I'll have to start following it. He has some good general advice for scientists starting to blog, although I have some reservations about the first bit.
Here are some tips for beginners. Start slowly; wait a day after writing and reread your draft before posting. Try to avoid discussing your own institution, and critique papers or theories in the field in a constructive manner. It is important that you include your own opinions, but do not use your blog to broadcast your opinions about issues that are unrelated to science.
Update your blog regularly, because readers will not visit blogs that they perceive as boring or 'old news'. Read and comment on other blogs, which will lead people to yours. Get a Twitter account to promote it and dabble with search-engine optimization. And do tell your colleagues about your blog.
Savvy scientists must increasingly engage with blogs and social media. A new generation of young researchers has grown up with an ever-present Internet. Publishers have been quicker than academics to react to this new world, but scientists must catch up. Even if you choose not to blog, you can certainly expect that your papers and ideas will increasingly be blogged about. So there it is — blog or be blogged.
I have to disagree with the suggestion that you avoid discussing anything but the science (obviously!) If you want to engage readers, you've got to go beyond the narrow domain of your field — you don't have to embrace controversy, like some of us do, but blogs are a personal medium, and if you aren't expressing yourself freely you're not going to get a wide readership.
Knoepfler implicitly admits this: he has a low traffic site with a niche audience (and there's nothing at all wrong with that; it's a model for how most scientists would want to operate their lab blogs, I think).
In an entire year of blogging I have had to censor just six inflammatory or defamatory comments. Despite my blog taking on the anti-stem-cell community in the United States and the misinformation its members peddle, such as the meme that adult stem cells are a panacea that make embryonic stem cells redundant, I have received remarkably few personal attacks from them. I am grateful for that, if puzzled.
This is certainly not because my blog goes unnoticed. True, I started with just five readers a day, but one year later, traffic has increased more than 30-fold and continues to rise. The blog averages 150 visitors a day and sometimes up to 500 a day, made up of a veritable Who's Who in stem-cell science, and beyond. How do I know? Senior figures in the field tell me in confidence that they read and enjoy the blog, although none has publicly contributed on it — perhaps a sign that there is still a way to go before scientists stop being nervous about blogs.
He shouldn't be puzzled. I'm not trying to be disparaging, but 150 visitors a day is very low, and what it means is that he's seeing a very small and specialized slice of the world — he's got a quality audience, not a snapshot of the general public, and that's why he's not getting much pushback. The mention in Nature will get him more visitors, but largely of the kind that won't disagree much with him; the mention here on Pharyngula will get him a broader audience, but without red meat for argument most of them probably won't stay.
Again, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think there is a qualitative difference between a blog aimed at a specialized audience, and one aimed at wider public engagement.
Technology
Comments
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmRvcXqKvQrf6UeBvN0TZa-qUwT00HHBZA
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July 28, 2011 3:13 PM
On the one hand, 150 visitors/day isn't that much for a blog. On the other hand, it could easily be more readers than the average technical paper gets in an entire year (or, maybe, *ever*), and is much bigger than the average size of a college class. It's nothing to be sneezed at.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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July 28, 2011 3:17 PM
I suppose I should be asking Dr. Knoepfler this, but after I'm done eating my babies, I put their stem cells right into the recycle bin. Are they getting to him, or should I be labelling them in a special way?
Posted by: PZ Myers
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July 28, 2011 3:20 PM
No, not at all, and I think one of the virtues of a blog is reaching a larger audience. I'm just saying that one of the reasons he's seeing relatively little argument in his comments is that he's not tapping into the average citizen audience.
But he does argue: see this post for an example.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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July 28, 2011 3:22 PM
See, now Brownian is probably not the kind of guy he wants reading his blog, anyway.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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July 28, 2011 3:25 PM
Oh, he's probably not the only blogger who feels that way...
Posted by: Trilobutt
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July 28, 2011 3:32 PM
On my blog, I used to have a section for pseudoscientific crap (creationism, global warming denialism and quackery), but it only attracted trolls, spam and threats, so I had to shut it down. Scientific posts, though, they don't attract any comments or visitors (I now get the same numbers as Dr. Knoepfler - although I update once in a blue moon). The only discussion I get from them is from students, colleagues or friends, and none ont he blog itself. Strange.
Posted by: Antiochus Epiphanes
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July 28, 2011 3:45 PM
Meh. Don't care for blogs.
Posted by: You_Monster
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July 28, 2011 3:50 PM
Sounds like you were doing a good job. Shame you stopped.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmZU8bjyyzHXwkE-kJ7LjNaM5j7YiKJPHg
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July 28, 2011 3:53 PM
I'm getting bored with my inability to comment on this site (transparently) despite having open ID which never works, and a google login which gives a googledygoop identity.
Whatever, PZ old fruit can you do a critique of my">http://stevebowen58.blogspot.com>my blog 'cos I could sure do with some traffic :)
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmZU8bjyyzHXwkE-kJ7LjNaM5j7YiKJPHg
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July 28, 2011 3:56 PM
Meh! you know where to find me...
Seriously though, the most interesting blog in the world and the hardest to comment on. Depressing, back to lurking...lurking......lurk
Posted by: crowepps
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July 28, 2011 4:12 PM
Went over and took a look -- the science part is way over my head, but I thought he had an accessible, engaging communication style. Wondered what he will think about what I suspect will be a huge one-day increase in hits caused by the horde dropping by to peek. Did anybody warn him?
Posted by: Trilobutt
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July 28, 2011 4:18 PM
I was juggling studying, thesis-writing, lecturing and working minimum-wage jobs at the time, I didn't have the patience to play Usenet mod as well ^^One attitude I see in some researchers is a bit of disdain for pop science, which I can half understand - I cringe when a topic is too dumbed down, to the point of being false. But for some reason, they can't see that blogs can go way beyond basic popular science and can be used as proper tools, for critiquing, education (public or for students), conversing with other researchers, etc. No idea why that blind spot still exists. (And I hope I just got a bad sample and that this attitude isn't widespread.)
Posted by: pteryxx
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July 28, 2011 5:11 PM
In cartoon format: Classic Bizarro comic
Posted by: dwperr2
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July 28, 2011 6:07 PM
When PZ kindly gave our blog a shout-out (evolvingscientist.net) we saw crazy numbers, and luckily retained about 10% of that traffic. Hopefully he can do the same for this blog. I think unfortunately most science blogs are VERY boring. If people want boring they'll read the journal article or the news. When I think a blog, I want something different, something entertaining.
We tried to go a different route, think the Daily Show meets scientific news. PZ also has a niche that works, but most scientist are boring and their blogs are also.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnrYJtcJlpbKgCoTHzdqdFiuGjRCOC14vI
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July 28, 2011 7:25 PM
Paul K is doing what 99% of the Stakeholders should be doing and that is communicating with the average Joe's interested in RegMed.
If you want to protect this research you need to start talking. Only TWO Companys have hESC FDA clinicals and those Companys are publicly traded. Geron(NASDAQ:GERN) and Advanced Cell Technology (OTCBB:ACTC) Whilst the Feds and CIRM were building fancy buildings and lots of high paid cronies getting fat jobs, Myself and thousands of other funded these Companies.
Protect your science, protect RegMed. Blog and Educate others @ www.investorstemcell.com 4,000 ABSOLUTE daily unique visitors, 1million page views a month and some of the top CEO's in the industry are waiting for you.
Superfeeed
Posted by: Warm Little Pond
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July 28, 2011 7:35 PM
I agree PZ, what fun is a blog where your content is entirely devoid of personal opinions? BORING! As long as you make it clear where the science ends, and your opinions begin, what's the issue?
Posted by: MagistraMarla
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July 28, 2011 8:04 PM
For what it's worth, here's a comment from a non-science person.
I started reading Pharyngula for the lively discussions about Atheism and Evolution - both interests of mine. I got my scientist husband to read it, and now he's a fan, too.
I read the scientific parts of the blog, even though they are sometimes a bit over my head. Luckily, I have someone who can explain things to me. It has expanded my knowledge immensely, and for that I am grateful.
Thank you, PZ!
Posted by: Ms. Daisy Cutter, Vile Creature Powered Entirely By Bitter
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July 28, 2011 8:58 PM
I really liked his guitar work when he was with Dire Straits.
/what?
Posted by: Terry Gibbs
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July 28, 2011 10:16 PM
I think taking a stand on controversial issues is a requirement if you want to expand your reach.
I just looked at my google webmaster tools reports today and saw the articles with the most traffic from google month after month are the ones where I attack idiots and scammers.
But, there are factors to consider. For example I have a blog at www.godspeaksdaily.com
While it has the name god in the title, it's not really about god. The Xians hate the site because I don't talk about jesus. When I set the GSD site up, I tied it to a newsletter account that sent announcements when I posted new essays.
I had a lot of problems with Xians signing up and then reporting the announcements as spam. I moved the announcement list to google where the spam complaints don't effect anything but the one site.
Posted by: Antonio
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July 29, 2011 1:35 AM
I find that blogs whose main intention is to achieve higher traffic are not nearly as interesting as those scientific blogs that discuss highly technical topics for a narrow audience of researchers and students. It's like comparing the mall with the small specialized music store. No offense, PZ, I enjoy your mostly mall-like blog, but I enjoy it more when you sporadically talk about recent published papers and the science behind them. A fun specialized blog, for example, is Dr. Terry Tao's. http://terrytao.wordpress.com/
Posted by: pknoepfler
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July 29, 2011 2:40 AM
Hi,
This is Paul K. Found you pretty fast, huh?
In the stem cell field, I am about as controversial as academic scientists get with my blog. I've never had anyone complain about the blog being boring...if you read the piece in Nature, you will see that it is the opposite. Some powerful people in science think I am too outspoken.
I realize that my audience is small at http://www.ipscell.com (e.g. when I blog at my site at science2.0 I get 500-1500 readers per post), but the "quality" is very high at ipscell.com. However, if you all have advice for getting more readers please let me know.
I often write from a more political perspective...not just a
Thanks PZ for your post by the way. Much appreciated.
Paul
Posted by: pknoepfler
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July 29, 2011 2:42 AM
Oops, lost the end of that penultimate sentence---not just a science perspective.
Posted by: lymie
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July 29, 2011 1:02 PM
There must be some kind of Heisenberg principle for blogs - you can't describe one accurately without driving traffic to it, and thereby changing it.
PZ has the power, we will see how PK does....
Posted by: ricardjorg
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July 31, 2011 12:40 PM
Well, you just see those 150 visitors a day, but remember much more people read this blog on RSS feed readers.
On Google Reader, it says:
Feed URL: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/index.xml
Posts per week: 57.4
Subscribers: 10,435
See? 10000 subscribers just on google reader :)