The idea for Nature Network first began as a local networking website. Nature Network Boston launched in June of 2006. It looked very different and had far fewer features. But it was a start.

Throughout 2006, people from outside of Boston clamored for a website that included them as well. So we started drafting plans for a global networking website, Nature Network.

2007

February
• Nature Network launches with a new logo and look. Nature Network Boston relaunches as a local hub within Nature Network.

March
• The next local hub, Nature Network London, goes live. To celebrate, the NNL team hosts the first of many successful monthly pub nights for London scientists.

April
• The Nature Protocols Discussion Forum, one of the first groups to be formed on NN, begins to take off. It remains one of the biggest and most popular groups. Bench scientists use the group’s forum to ask each other questions about experimental procedures.

May
• The Nature Network Newcomers Forum is born, a place where newbies can introduce themselves and meet the editors and each other.

June
• Nature Network Boston hosts its first pub night for Boston scientists. It was a scorching day and the bar wasn’t very well air conditioned, so kudos to the 25 or so scientists who showed up and sweated it out.

July
• The Guardian, a major UK newspaper, highlights Nature Network in an article that features a rather sinister-looking photo of our very own NNL editor Matt Brown.

• A new and improved events calendar goes live on the Boston and London sites.

August
• The homepage of nature.com gets a complete makeover and Nature Network finds itself featured right in the center of the page. The number of new signups ramps up.

• We launch a new feature allowing NN members to send each other private messages.

September
• The Ask the Nature Editor forum is created and several editors of Nature and its sister journals pitch in to answer people’s questions about open access, peer review, careers in scientific editing, and other topics. It remains one of our most popular groups.

October
• We begin a series of page redesigns. The Blogs, Groups and Forums homepages are spruced up so that they show off more of the popular content on the site.

November
• We reach 500 groups formed.

December
• The Nature News team launches a group and in it starts off a discussion about the ethics of cognition-enhancing drugs, based on a commentary published in Nature. It becomes one of the hottest topics of discussion on Nature Network.

2008

January
• Four of our bloggers are chosen to be included in Open Laboratory 2007, an anthology of the best science blog posts.

• We partner with Euroscience Open Forum 2008 (ESOF) to create a group in which their 20,000 members will be invited to discuss the important issues affecting science today.

February
• The online journal club within the Neuroscience group gains momentum with more regular posts about the latest papers in the field (see the latest topic here.). Scientists join in to discuss the papers and membership breaks 100.

We at Nature Network look forward to another fun and exciting year and we thank you, our users, for your support and enthusiasm and for making our first year a success.