Wired uses Facebook group for science reporting

Wired science reporter Alex Madrigal is interviewed about his exploits so far in beat blogging.

He’s trying some interesting things, among them:

running a Facebook group for people who read science stories; posting pieces to the group ahead of publication (such as a list of ‘top 10 new organisms’) to keep people interested, posting video of reporters and editors at work in the office so readers can see what it looks like

looking at running debates: reader versus reader, or reader versus expert. Then perhaps create Reddit widgets so people can vote on who won the debate.

looking at asking readers to tag science journal articles that they’re interested in, maybe using Del.icio.us, which Wired can then monitor and incorporate into their reporting.