Micro-Science-Blogging

Here's a crazy idea, what if scientists posted results of their studies for the year, month, week, or hell, even their exciting result of the day, to YouTube? What if we blogged our science?

Let's say, for sake of argument, that I have an interesting result, not yet ready for publication in a journal but certainly worthy of the attention and maybe comments from other researchers. On the one hand, I could work on that idea further until it's ready for a "real" publication. That would probably involve some missteps, maybe some time lost (open the door for scooping), but will also make for a more complete product when it is actually released. 

On the other hand, I could open myself up for comments at a very early stage. Not only would the online "timestamp" validate my status as first to the result immediately, it would also give others a chance to comment, criticize, and potentially even initiate their own projects. When the project reaches a later stage I will have already incorporated "reviewer" comments into my manuscript, which will remain just as valuable as a formal report of the work. 

Perhaps such a system could work on a by-lab basis. Labs could become, in a weird way, their own publishing houses. Weekly updates on results could feed into the RSS feed of other labs. Just a thought