ScienceBlogs was launched in January 2006 with 15 blogs on the network. Seed Media Group had initially contacted the existing science blogging network ScienceBlog.com about a possible partnership, but later launched independently with a similar name and web address. For the launch blogs, Seed invited some of the best-known independent science bloggers and allowed them to blog about whichever subjects they wished. Revenue was generated through advertisements sold to companies who wished to attract "bright, curious consumers who buy products like automobiles, books, cellphones, computers, liquor, music and watches." As a result of the free rein given to bloggers and the incentive to increase traffic, bloggers on the network often discussed hot topics such as
politics and
religion in addition to science. These topics frequently incited heated arguments in the comment threads and bloggers on the network sometimes got into arguments with each other over a series of posts. ,
Quantcast charted it as having over 1.1 million monthly unique visitors, 65% of whom were from the
United States. , ScienceBlogs hosted 75 blogs dedicated to various fields of research. In April 2011, ScienceBlogs was taken over by
National Geographic. While Seed would still maintain ownership of the site, National Geographic would acquire editorial control and responsibility for advertising sales on the site. ScienceBlogs launched a
German language edition of the site, ScienceBlogs.de, in 2008 in partnership with
Hubert Burda Media. As of 7 December 2010, the site hosted 35 blogs. ScienceBlogs Brazil debuted in March 2009 with 23 Portuguese language blogs.
"PepsiGate" In June 2010, ScienceBlogs started a blog which was sponsored by
PepsiCo and was to be written by their employees. This led to backlash by many of the bloggers on ScienceBlogs who considered this to be an unethical mix of advertising and journalism, and the PepsiCo blog was withdrawn from ScienceBlogs. This affair was informally named "PepsiGate". By the middle of July approximately a quarter of the bloggers had left ScienceBlogs. Subsequently, some bloggers such as
PZ Myers of
Pharyngula announced they were going on strike as part of a general feeling that the people running Seed had failed to respond to concerns surrounding the incident. Seed Media responded by killing off
Food Frontiers, the Pepsico sponsored blog, but that didn't stop the defections. According to PZ Myers, "The ship is sinking". A writer at the
New York Times Magazine reviewed the incident and commented, "ScienceBlogs has become
Fox News for the religion-baiting, peak-oil crowd." Some other science blogging networks were launched, including scientopia.org, scienceseeker.org and one hosted by
The Guardian. In early 2015, however, eleven of the network's 2006 founding-generation blogs were still active, including Myers's.
Demise On 14 October 2017, astrophysics blogger Steinn Sigurðsson publicly revealed that ScienceBlogs was due to be shut down, and
David Gorski, author of the "Respectful Insolence" blog under his pseudonym Orac, stated that ScienceBlogs had "barely existed as an entity for a few years". Astrophysics blogger
Ethan Siegel reported on 22 October 2017 that ScienceBlogs had informed bloggers it "no longer had the funds to keep the site operational, and so they would be shutting down".
Revival In late August 2018, a note appeared on the home page which said that ScienceBlogs was now part of the
Science 2.0 family and that plans were in place to make the site active once again. ==Awards==