We want anyone to be able to contribute to ap.com. One way to do this is to leave blog posts open (but with a review
queue). We proposed this method here, but not many people seem to be making use of it.
Maybe writing a blog post is too time consuming, and the barrier of entry is too high. An easy solution is microblogging: services like twitter let you share a tiny bit of something interesting you found (with a link), and anyone following you will receive it.
The thing with microblogging is that it doesn’t take much effort to share. Many people (including me) thought it was silly at first, but now it’s mainstream.
Since twitter provides real-time search you can find what people talk about right now. If you want to monitor a special topic, chances are someone came up with a unique way of identify the topic. A spontaneous way of organizing information outside the ‘follows’ structure emerged: the hashtag. These are terms that start with #, example: #iranelection. We have set up #AcaProd for academicproductivity. If you have an idea, or read something outstanding that you would like to share with us, just tweet about it and add #AcaProd somewhere in the 140 characters. Your tweet then is easily found by anyone interested in the topic. We will display all tweets in our front page too.
I found myself sharing a lot of interesting stuff over twitter, and much more often than through a blog, so I have a good feeling about this.
Of course, you should keep sending ideas/suggestions/complaints using our email, blog@academicproductivity.com
