The age of the Twitter conference

Conferences allow researchers to present findings, exchange ideas, and develop networks. Unfortunately, they also incur high financial costs for participants and high environmental costs in the form of carbon emissions associated with air and other travel. Twitter—already popular with many academics ([ 1 ][1])—can reach large audiences in a short period of time. We propose that global Twitter conferences could be a cost-effective and low-carbon complement to traditional conferences. The World Seabird Union hosted Twitter Conferences in 2015 and 2016. The 2016 conference featured 72 presenters from 11 countries. Each presenter had 15 minutes to present six tweets (at 140 characters each). The constraints forced presenters to be succinct and use photographs, infographics, or animations to explain their work. The 2016 World Seabird Twitter Conference hashtag (#WSTC2) was used by 633 people in 3931 posts, compared with the 540 people who wrote 2700 posts tagged with the 2015 hashtag (#WSTC1). The success and growth of these events demonstrate the effectiveness of Twitter as a peer-to-peer platform for scientific interaction and science communication. 1. [↵][2]1. G. Orizaola, 2. A. E. Valdes , Science 350, 170 (2015). [OpenUrl][3][FREE Full Text][4] [1]: #ref-1 [2]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [3]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DScience%26rft.stitle%253DScience%26rft.aulast%253DOrizaola%26rft.auinit1%253DG.%26rft.volume%253D350%26rft.issue%253D6257%26rft.spage%253D170%26rft.epage%253D171%26rft.atitle%253DFree%2Bthe%2Btweet%2Bat%2Bscientific%2Bconferences%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1126%252Fscience.350.6257.170-c%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Apmid%252F26450202%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [4]: /lookup/ijlink/YTozOntzOjQ6InBhdGgiO3M6MTQ6Ii9sb29rdXAvaWpsaW5rIjtzOjU6InF1ZXJ5IjthOjQ6e3M6ODoibGlua1R5cGUiO3M6NDoiRlVMTCI7czoxMToiam91cm5hbENvZGUiO3M6Mzoic2NpIjtzOjU6InJlc2lkIjtzOjE0OiIzNTAvNjI1Ny8xNzAtYyI7czo0OiJhdG9tIjtzOjI1OiIvc2NpLzM1Mi82MjkyLzE0MDQuMi5hdG9tIjt9czo4OiJmcmFnbWVudCI7czowOiIiO30=