One accusation that has been leveled at social media and those who invest in it is that it won’t help us solve the tough problems because those require science (Steve Blank provides one example of this view and at least somewhat ironically so does Founders Fund). I wholeheartedly agree that we need more science but I believe we will get there in a peer produced and funded model that will be quite different from what we have today. Research networks such as Research Gate, Academia.edu and Mendelay are putting scientists directly in touch with each other. And emerging funding sites such as Petridish and Microryza point the way to how a much more diverse portfolio of research will get funded than through the existing sources. These efforts are small today compared to traditional science publishing and the research grant machinery but so was Kickstarter just a relatively short time ago. These emerging systems are a type of specialized social media and their spread and growth will be enabled by the more genera social media such as Twitter and Facebook. I am convinced that given enough time these will dwarf traditional venture capital as a funding source for science.
