We’re now just days away from the biggest change to Nature Network since its launch over three years ago. As well as a major redesign, we’re looking forward to unleashing several new features.
Your Workbench
Perhaps the most radical is called Workbench. This section of the site will house various modules (known as apps) that allow you to create your own lens on the scientific web. You’ll be able to add new apps from a catalogue, drag and drop them to wherever on the page you want to display them, and, in future, even create your own. Workbench functions much like services such as iGoogle and Netvibes, but is specially designed for scientists. If there’s an app that you’d like to see, or even help to develop, please feel free to contact us with your suggestions.
Top: Screengrab of a Workbench page. Each of the rectangular modules can be repositioned, deleted or swapped for an alternative app. Bottom: The Nature Network App selection area.
Q&A
A new Questions and Answers section will allow users to ask for expert advice from other scientists as well as submitting answers of their own. The service builds on the success of the Nature Protocols discussion forum by targeting questions to the community and allowing users to rate alternative answers and nominate subject experts.
The main Q&A page, showing number of answers (light bulb symbol) and number of ‘thumbs up’.
Other new features
The relaunched site will also have a greatly improved personal profile page, better software for tracking the online activity of contacts (both on Nature Network and in the wider web), and a cleaner, updated look.
Sneak peek at the enhanced profile pages which include the ability to add your updates from external sites such as Twitter and FriendFeed.
The new site is scheduled to launch next week. Further updates will follow here, including advice on how to get the most out of the new features, so don’t forget to check back regularly.
We look forward to showing you the new Nature Network!
The Nature Network Team
Who do we contact exactly about the apps? Ian? Steve? Lou? Jeremy Bentham? =)
Also: this looks really awesome from what I can make out from the screenshots.
Ah, the next stage in Nature’s quest to reduce scientific productivity. It won’t work though, although there may be a few less games of Minesweeper played.
Eva - just send an email to networknature.com and depending on what exactly the comment is, we’ll field it to the right person.@Bob, you haven’t seen my personal favourite app yet…
ooooooOOOOOOooooooh. Fancy schmancy!
Sounds interesting.
How many RSS readers and views per day average blog on NN can make?
Bersenev – in response to your question, I’ve sent you a message.
Triple-A: awe and admiration.
Good luck. I look forward to seeing it.
Oh ye gods.
Let me take the contrarian view (bet you didn’t see that coming) and say… if this all works as advertised straight out of the box, I will be amazed.
Otherwise, it looks very spiffy, if rather complicated.
Thanks for the enthusiasm! Richard, let me reassure you on two counts – new Nature Network (NNN?) has had months of testing so we really hope that we are already aware of the minor niggles that exist. Also, this is nowhere near as complex technically as the MT4 migration which involved getting several different systems all working in sync.
And as for the new site looking complicated…I hope you’ll find out for yourself that it isn’t, but just in case anyone feels a bit disorientated, we’ll be featuring “how to…” blog posts with handy hints and tips all next week.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Sounds very promising (sort of a LinkedIn on steroids), but I’ll echo Richard W’s note of caution, given the last meltdown with the blog transition.
Don’t worry. MT5 will fix it.
Lou, can I at least have that one strange problem corrected in my profile where the publication is listed without any author name with it? Matt had assured me months back that your technical person managed to successfully reproduce my problem and that it would be corrected. Not yet, I found.
Having said that, I must admit that the new interface looks very pleasing and attractive (at least from the screenshots).
Nothing endures but change.. said Heraclitus (in some 500BC) and this quote remains unchaged till date (iPun)
I am eagerly waiting to see the new version.
About doubts of reducing scientific productivity, It depends on US (not usa..) how we use it.
in fact I have a nice idea to design “Matchmaker” or “Find a PhD Date” app… It would be so productive! (iGiggle..)
And guess what, its not just nature network which is launching new version this week.. GeeK of science is also coming on nature network blogs!
I quickly read the last comment and thought vishal was talking about a “deathmatch” app…
Lou, thanks for the reassurance. Please tell me that you meant “disoriented” though…
Thanks everyone for your interest.
@Kausik, can you check whether the new profile fixes the problem that you mentioned? If not, please email me the details and I’ll try to get it fixed for you.
@RichardW – I’m hoping no one will be either “disorientated” or “disoriented”, but clearly “disorientated” would be worse 🙂