Tumblr is a growing social media platform that is a bit of a mix between Twitter, a blog and something like Flickr (as it is normally associated with images or short videos). It is suited to multiple platforms and cloud-based. It is a platform that may suit some researchers. Another multi-platform blog along similar lines is Posterous.
Ohhhh - exciting new feature from Slideshare. Browser based conferencing system for online meetings. Still in Beta and if you want something to remain private you will have to have a pro account.
Graduate Junction is an online community connecting postgraduates who have similar academic interests. Graduate Junction aims to break down the interdisciplinary and institutional barriers that exist in academia and connect people based only on the work that they do and the interests that they have. Graduate Junction was founded in 2008 by two postgraduates at Durham University working alongside their own degree projects because they felt isolated in their own fields. When the first version of the Graduate Junction platform was launched it received support from postgraduates and academics alike. It has continued to grow with the community now containing almost 16,000 members.
The community has continued to evolve over time with new functions and features added based upon suggestions from the community itself. All functionality added to the site since its launch has been requested by postgraduates. Despite having no external funding or support these changes have been made possible thanks to the time input of postgraduate volunteers, making Graduate Junction an entirely postgraduate-led initiative.
Social media trends for 2011 from HBR. Worth a look, even if you don't agree with many of them (like me). I do think these trends have a distorted bias towards business and that misses the point really. There is also a growing push-back against Facebook that is ignored by this analysis from the US.
Short blog post about the research quality of some journals and how Twitter and blog posts are attacking them in the interests of higher quality research.
Released in February 2011, this guide for researchers introduces some basics about how social media may be of use and highlights some basic social media tools.