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The contemporary arts curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist once said that the most important things at a conference happen in the coffee breaks. He famously took this observation to its logical conclusion by running a science/arts event, “Art & Brain” that was essentially an extended coffee break.

That’s the philosophy behind the Node, the Company of Biologists’ new community website. The Company of Biologists is a not-for-profit organization that publishes the Journal of Cell Science and Development (and others). It financially supports the biological community (last year to the tune of half a million quid) by grants and travel awards (and I as a neophyte was lucky enough to benefit from one of these). So last week I went all the way to Cambridge for the Node launch party, to hobnob with John Gurdon and others and see what the fuss was all about.

The Node bills itself as ‘the community site for developmental biologists’. Until now, online fora for scientists have not been terribly successful: last year I was getting invitations to the next supposed ‘Facebook for Scientists’ about once a week. The problem with them is that on the whole scientists have been unable to discover any added value. Monetizing these sites has been a real headache for those running them. There are two reasonably successful networking sites aimed at scientists, that seem to provide a real benefit and have managed to attract professional scientists rather than just students (and have a lower than average spam to ham ratio): the Science Advisory Board and Nature Network. So launching an online site for scientists seems to be a brave move.

But what the Node is doing might set it apart for two reasons. First, as I say, the Company is not-for-profit, so will not be forced to satisfy advertisers or be tempted to spam (potential) members. Second, the Node is specifically for developmental biologists. By focussing on a limited ‘market’, and trying to keep these people happy