ResearchGate

ResearchGate is free social network and means of cooperation of scientific all scientific disciplines. It provides such network applications as semantic search (search in the summary) [2], file sharing, exchange of publications of base, forums, methodological discussions and so on. Participants can create the personal blog in network. On May 24, 2011 it was announced that ResearchGate reached a point in 1,400,000 users from 192 countries of the world.

One of distinctive features of ResearchGate is the mechanism of semantic search developed by it which indexes both internal resources, and the main public bases of articles, including PubMed, CiteSeer, arXiv, NASA Library. This search mechanism was developed especially for the analysis of summaries of articles entirely (and not just a key word) that, in principle, should increase the accuracy of results.

The similar search mechanism of semantic compliance is used for the offer of new social communications to participants of network. Having analyzed information specified by the user in his profile, the website offers groups, other participants and literature close to the interests of the user. In general, more than 1,100 groups are created. Groups can be both open, and closed. Any user can always create new group. The group offers instruments of support of cooperation, such as means of exchanging files. Also there are tools for planning of meetings and the organization of polls. Several scientific organizations and conferences use ResearchGate as the main method of communication with participants. The website also offers an opportunity of creation of private subgroups for the big organizations open only for participants from the relevant institute. The website also contains a bulletin board with the list of the international vacancies for scientists. The list can be sorted by a key word, a position, areas and the countries. In 2009 ResearchGate gave the chance to load recently published articles with copyright compliance. These articles are automatically indexed by the search mechanism of the website. Users can read and download articles free of charge.

ResearchBlog

ResearchBlog is the official blog. It was open in November, 2009.

Participants of network can send records from the personal ResearchGate-blogs for inclusion in the general, official blog. The most high-quality records are selected and published. Thus, ResearchBlog consisting of the selected records of users is dear source of news, comments, researches and innovations from all areas of scientific activity.

In addition to writing articles for the personal blogs, all participants of network can use a new template of microarticle for a summary of the published and otretsezirovanny article or for the presentation of the last finds or important concepts. A "micro" template in the name it is connected with the fact that record should be not longer than 306 characters, just as in microblogs. These micromessages can be published as in the personal blog by the user, and are sent to the general ResearchBLOG. The purpose of this innovation — to accelerate distribution of results of researches in scientific community. In the light of it, each message should contain the reference or to article in ResearchGate base, or external reference, or on article loaded by the author. Thus, users will be able to get access to the mentioned article immediately.

It is possible monitor publications in blogs and microblogs by participants of network through a news feed or through RSS.

Company

On September 8, 2010 ResearchGate announced completion of financing of Series A. This cycle passed under the direction of Benchmark Capital from Silicon Valley which also invested in twitter and ebay. In financing department of Accel Partners some famous investors patrons from Great Britain (including the former partner of Accel Simon Levene), the founder of Bebo Michael Birch, the general partner of Wellington Venture Capital Rolf Christoph Dinst participated in Silicon Valley (financing facebook). And also founder of Scout24 Joachim Shoss, co-founder of idealo.com Martin Sinner, co-founder of Sedo.com Ulrich Essman and founder of MyVideo.de Christian Volman. The former chief executive of Facebook and the present general partner of Benchmark Capital the Mat Kokhler together with Simon Levene and Joachim Shoss entered Board of Directors of ResearchGate.

In May, 2013 in media there was information that the company received the next tranche from investors for the amount of 20 million dollars. As one of investors within this tour the co-founder of MicrosoftBill Gates acted.

Other scientific social networks

• Academia.edu
• Epernicus
• Mendeley
• Scispace.net