Nature's newest venture is "Nature Network," which is social networking for the scientist. I quickly found and joined groups for people working on bioinformatics, Drosophila and Arabidopsis. I didn't find a group working on splicing, so I created one. Nature Network could be quite useful, but I wonder if it is going to succeed. To do so, it must "catch on," a phenomenon that his hard to predict and depends very much on the site providing useful tools not available elsewhere. Right now, most of what it offers seems redundant, but at the very least it provides a professional alternative to Yahoo groups for ad hoc groups of scientists who want to create an online forum for exchange on a particular topic. One especially interesting choice is the elevation of London and Boston to a special status. I'm sure that Nature Network San Francisco will come soon, but I see lots of problems with this. Would the East Bay have their own Nature Network? I can't wait to find out if New York or Washington will be added first. Where will it end? Recalling the desperate enthusiasm with which I have often seen local politicians embrace biotechnology, I fear that this could get competitive and ugly, even before Nature Network runs out of space on their local menu toolbar.Of course, the weekly journal is still the keystone of Nature Publishing Group. I have had a personal subscription for over 20 years and I read the journal, in print, every week, bringing it along with me to meals and whatnot. This year, they are being very aggressive about renewals and they're getting it very wrong. My annual renewal expires in September. About a month ago I received a phone call in my office, inviting me to renew. Yes, they called me. Promised a 30% discount, I did so. I renewed online in an attempt to be sure that I generated a renewal of my existing subscription, following the instructions of the person who called me. The result was an entirely new subscription, which expired not in September of 2008, but in July of 2008. I also found that I had three or four customer IDs associated with my account (for only two journals, the other being Nature Genetics). After many rounds of email with their customer service my subscriptions were simplified under a single subscriber number with the proper expiration date. I should emphasize that the replies were prompt, cordial and helpful; the problem is with their system. I assumed that everything was fine, despite the numerous entries on "/myaccount/show/subs," shown here for your amusement.
Then, I received two copies of Nature in the mail. Inquiry generated a response that came down to this:So this is the reason you are receiving two copies of the same journal Nature but they are two different volumes and issues.so you will be receiving two copies of Nature till Sep 2007.I decided to leave well enough alone.
Today, I received an email, from Sarah Greaves, PhD, Publisher, Nature, herself, that read in part
Your current subscription to Nature is now up for renewal. To ensure you don’t miss a single issue, I am pleased to offer you a 30% discount from our normal subscription rate.I wanted to run screaming from the room, but I opted instead for writing this post.
This offer expires on SEPTEMBER 27th and is only available online through this email, so act now to ensure you don’t miss out on this exclusive rate.
This problem continues even today (March 2011). I recently renewed both Nature and Nature Genetics. I was assigned yet another customer ID and although the new id is subscribed through some time in 2012, I received a letter from Dominic Pettit expressing her regret that I did not renew. They assign new customer IDs to renewals and then wonder why the old ID did not continue it's subscription. It's just weird.
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