I just checked out Scitable and think it’s yet another cool velvet rope social network just like yesterday’s Black Box Republic post, only where Sam Lawrence and team want to make the sex-positive world feel safe, Vikram Savkar, Nature Education’s publishing director, wants the folks doing big work in genetics to feel comfortable.

Oh, and the site is very student-friendly. Want to build some classroom materials to teach your students genetics? This is the place.

Again, what interests me is that this is another kind of “velvet rope social network,” which means a social network that has a bit of a gate on who would enter, who would participate, and what matters to the people inside. With that in mind, the creators of such sites can build more targeted experiences, tools that are specific to the users, and build value that doesn’t exist in commons-based sites like Facebook or Twitter.

What’s your take?