astrobiology 2.0

I gather NASA has discovered web 2.0 and social networking.
From a series of very interesting conversations I've had recently had, there is both growing awareness of a semi-official NASA presence in web 2.0 realms, and an interest in making this permanent and official.

My first reaction was to go back and flick through my old copy of True Names

Hah feds, you'll never take Mr Slippery alive!

There is an astrobioblog, which is moribund, usual problem in "official blog" creation. There was at some point an official LISA blog, but I can't even find it anymore.

- Contrast with Keith Cowing's notNASA's Astrobiology Network which is truly excellent, but undertrafficked and needs to be permanently on my blogroll.

Facebook has an active Astrobiology Club - set up by Colorado grad students I gather. There are several smaller astrobio groups, most of which seem moribund.

There are also several NASA groups, including one medium sized "Official NASA" facebook group - some of the unofficial ones seem more interesting, there are also anti-NASA groups. (I don't understand the Bosnian NASA group...)

There are several Astronomy groups, one of which is cleverly classified as "outdoor sports" (huh!)

I gather there is already some NASA presence in Second Life, and there is serious consideration to make it permanent and official on bigger scale.

The rationale is actually sensible - it provides very cost effective, targeted outreach, and if done right can build a good social information network, precisely the sort of stuff web 2.0 is good at. IF it is done right.
Right now I see NASA CoLab and Explorer Island have a presence, and there are two tiny NASA groups.

We'll see. If PAO gets a hold of it, well, there will always be new networks and realms...

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Seti@Home was kind of 2.0-ish, wasn't it? Perhaps the main effect of the project was not delivering raw computing power to SETI science, but rather involving the public in the project. Good politics as well as good computer science.