It is interesting to see new developments in the dissemination of scientific discourse, such as scientific blogging and paradigms such as open science, come on-line with developments in web-based social media. The latest medium to receive the Science 2.0 treatment (poor pun on applying Web 2.0 technologies for science) is the video.

YouTube is probably the granddaddy, or at least the most prominent of the video upload and broadcast services. Although YouTube doesn’t not have a defined science category, it is easy to find science related videos and lectures, mixed in with the general population. However, several specialist sites have appeared dealing specifically with science research, all have been labeled as “YouTube for science”. The most recent site is SciVee, which is a collaboration of the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). The fact the a publishing house (PLoS) has got involved in this effort is encouraging, and maybe an admittance that a paper, in isolation of public commentary, the data used to produce the paper, and a sensible presentation mechanism, is no longer sufficient in the web-based publishing era (or maybe I have got over excited and read to much into it). The most interesting feature on SciVee, and probably the most powerful compared to some of the other broadcasters, is the ability to link to an Open Access publication, setting the context and relevance of the video. The flip side could also be true, where a video provides evidence of the experiment, such as the methods or the displays the result.

Another scientific video broadcaster is the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JOVE). As the name suggests, JOVE focuses on capturing the experiment performed within the laboratory, rather than a presentation, or general scientific discourse. As a result JOVE can be though of as a visual protocol or methods journal and is stylaised as a traditional journal, already on Issue 6; a focus on Neuroscience.

If JOVE is a visual journal for life-science experiments then Bioscreencast could be thought of as a visual journal of Bioinformatics. Bioscreencast focusses on screencasts of software, providing a visual “How-to” on scientific software, presentations and demonstrations.

No doubt these three may not be the last scientific video publishers, but they have an opportunity to become well established ahead of the others. Now, where is my webcam, I need to video myself writing code and submit it to JOVE, produce a demo and submit it to Bioscreencast. Then I have to write a paper on it, submit the pre-prints to Nature Preccedings get it published in an Open Access Journal, then video myself giving a presentation on the paper, submit it to SciVee and link them all together.