from Hacker News

Academia.edu, The Social Networking Platform For Researchers, Raises $11 Million

by RichardPrice on 9/26/13, 4:50 PM with 20 comments

• by linhat on 9/26/13, 8:40 PM

  So, is anybody here actually active on academia.edu? Asking, since as a computer vision researcher (3D reconstruction, obstacle recognition/identification, augmented reality, ...) I am constantly looking for scientific resources, and to be frank, it is quite annoying because it can become really time consuming.

  So a genuine question, is the site worth signing up for? I remember when mendeley just started, there was lots of excitement about it, mainly because it was sort of marketed as the last.fm of research (giving you good recommendations for your scientific interests), but then it turned out to be just meeh (getting bought by Elsevier didn't help much ;-).

  Also, on a side note, are there any other good sites doing something similar out there (like a reddit/HN for insert your research interests here type of site) that are actually any good? I'm sure there must be a lot of other researchers active on HN...

• by thelettere on 9/26/13, 7:47 PM

  Still kind of shitty - you have to log in to view or download anything. Google scholar is much more useful and open.

• by taariqlewis on 9/26/13, 6:17 PM

  It's all fun and games until we someone asks what's the DAU/MAU on that puppy. How many of those are actually active and what are they actually doing when they login.

• by diminoten on 9/26/13, 6:52 PM

  How did it get a .edu domain? Is it an accredited institution?

• by jgamman on 9/26/13, 11:59 PM

  after Mendeley I'm not going anywhere near something like this. and seriously, isn't the web itself the best publishing mechanism ever invented? why are we trying to fit everything into a single service provider model? academic makes webpage using awful html and notepad with copies of their articles. other researchers track the people they're interested in. RSS? not my !@##@ problem, use a site checker plug-in. it's free, extendable and has no lock-in risks. the root cause problem here is academic promotion incentives almost force you into publishing behind paywalls.

• by fluidcruft on 9/26/13, 11:25 PM

  How does this compare to researchgate? I know lots of people that use researchgate.net, but nobody I know uses academia.edu.

• by cantastoria on 9/27/13, 1:47 AM

  I'd love to see their business plan.

  Academics on the whole are not a good demo for advertising and don't want to pay for anything related to their jobs/research unless they have absolutely no other choice. How are they going to make money? I can't even see them being a good acquisition.

• by mbq on 9/26/13, 10:37 PM

  IMO the only useful thing about A.edu is that they have a good position in search engines and give you an information about clicks -- so it's like Google Analytics for your papers and profile. The rest is sadly either cumbersome or redundant.