Probably like many others, I have often been puzzled by the phenomenon of ‘micro-blogging’, which consists in posting very short messages on the web (typically via sites such as Twitter) with the goal of providing an instantaneous description of the activity, state of mind or thoughts of the writer. The last few days, a small group of bloggers attending the ISMB 2008 Conference in Toronto used a form of collective micro-blogging on FriendFeed in an intensive way to cover many of the talks held at the conference.
Particularly interesting was the coverage of several keynote lectures, often commented simultaneously on a single ‘feed’ by several bloggers in the audience, providing so to say a real-time example of ‘crowdsourcing’. The result is a surprisingly useful set of notes, where the combined attention and complementary knowledge of the participants allow some gaps to be filled, provide additional information (including references or links) and follow the flow of the presentation as it unfolds. I provide below a few picks, relevant to systems biology, while the rest can be consulted (and, importantly, searched!) in the ISMB 2008 Room’ on FriendFeed. Good job & many thanks!