The web becomes an even better platform for chemistry

We recorded an episode of c2cbio earlier today and in that episode we talked about Chempedia and Chempedia Labs. I will avoid the main point of our discussion, and focus on the part that has me most interested in Chempedia. Rich Apodaca just plain gets the web. It’s not just the part about Chempedia being on Heroku, but a broader understanding of how content and APIs on the web should work. Here are some key aspects of Chempedia that I dig

• It’s social in the right way (the focus is on the chemistry, but allows you to find people)
• It is RESTful
• It understands search engines
• It uses CC0

In general, for months I have been following Rich’s work in making the web chemistry aware. He is certainly not the only one pushing chemistry on the web, but Rich understands the fundamentals as well as anyone I know and it is efforts like his which will make science on the web a better experience. And yes this does sound like déjà vu.