Advertising is a classic, well-proven way to earn money for a publication, blog or site. “It’s the cost of not having direct, paid reader support,” says John Rennie, an experienced science writer, editor and lecturer, and former editor in chief of Scientific American. Readers are acclimated to ads, but you have to use good taste. “Many [...]

It is getting easier and cheaper for cultural and scientific organizations make mobile, handheld tours. According to Nielsen, 40% of Americans with mobile phones are carrying smartphones; of those 40% run Android, and 28% have an Apple iPhone. This is a huge market, and by 2012, approximately half your audience could use your app from the [...]

What was once prohibitively complex and expensive can now be done inexpensively with online testing services. Testing will uncover problems that are confusing for your audience. Here’s a list of vendors to start your research process, and some suggestions. Three suggestions For a real-world example on a recent project, designer Ben Snyder said on his blog, “the [...]

As Tropical Storm Irene was passing up the East Coast, and tens of millions of Americans successfully prepared for the storm, FoxNews ran an op-ed piece, featured on their home page on 27-August, from the  Competitive Enterprise Institute. The CEI’s mission is “limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty.” Original is here. Aside from misleading criticisms, this [...]

Mobile is exploding, and this has vast implications for education. Here’s a summary of top news and trends for mobile this summer… Smartphones are popular phones. According to Nielsen, 38% of Americans now own smartphones, and 55% of those who purchased a new handset in the past three months bought a smartphone (rather than a dumb one), up [...]

All publications from the National Academies Press (NAP) are now available for free as PDFs. NAP is the publishing arm of the National Academies, and publishes 200+ books a year on topics in science, engineering, and health. Making the PDFs free is the culmination of a decade of research and sales modeling on how to finance a nimble publishing [...]

IDEA’s second mobile app, WikiNodes (see app store link) puts the encyclopedic knowledge of Wikipedia at the fingertips of iPad users. Articles are displayed as nodes that can be touched, dragged and spun around — showing the relations between articles and sections of articles. The app is currently featured in Apple’s app store. Here’s a 30 second demo: The app [...]

Virtual exhibits on tablet devices (e.g., the Apple iPad) put exhibits at the fingertips of students and the public. Visitors can browse science, art or culture from classrooms, during their commutes, or from their sofas. — But where does the money come from? As with physical museums, the problem with charging money for downloads is [...]

Over 70% of U.S. museums are in economic distress, according to a new report from the American Association of Museums. Here are some key findings:

The National STEM Video Game Challenge, awarded the $50k grand prize last week to a professional team that did not meet the eligibility criteria. This story came to my attention last week, when I wrote a blog post about a cool online science game for Middle School kids which won the grand prize as part of the [...]