Taking new routes: Blogs, Web sites, and Scientific Publishing

Scientific publishing has a long history and is inseparably tied to the academic research process. Besides making results available to a broader community, thus allowing peer review and further development, it also has an important influence on the scientists' reputation. There are traditional and established platforms for scientific publishing, but these are currently being challenged by new online channels. In this article I discuss author-controlled publishing on platforms like personal web pages, blogs, or social networking services. I argue, that these platforms can play an important role in the scientists' self-presentation. As such, they do not compete with the traditional publishing platforms, but complement them.