TechCrunch carries news this morning of a new site, Academia.edu.

From Jason’s description, it certainly seems worth a closer look;

“Professors, post docs, and graduate students are displayed according to their department and the professors they work under, as well as their specific fields of study. In the future, the site will also map which members have worked with each other on past research projects.

While this map may prove useful once in a while, Academia.edu’s real draw is its news feed, which allows users to stay up to date on current events in their field. News items include recently published papers, conferences, and project news. Users are asked to build profiles describing their academic backgrounds and current projects, and can choose to upload their journal articles or abstracts, depending on what their publishers allow. All content on the site is meant to be geared towards academics - this isn’t a place for scientists to socialize.”

I’ve been looking at the site for the past hour, and getting nothing but server errors. Perhaps there will be more to say when I do finally get through.

And, as one commenter on the TechCrunch post notes, how did they manage to get a .edu domain name?