Chris Nolan, a San Francisco-based veteran political journalist and the founder of Spot-on.com, began a political blog two years ago as a one-woman project.

“I just get tired of yelling at my TV set about the current state of politics,” Nolan said. “So I started screwing around with commentary online.”

After learning more about how inexpensive online blogging is in comparison with paper media, Nolan decided a year ago to invite other bloggers to create a political commentary website with a unique perspective.

“I realized that this doesn’t just have to be me,” she said. “I looked for people who have something to say and who can express themselves well.”

Thus, other writers were invited, and Spot-on.com was born.

The site includes blogs by Nolan; international journalist Deborah Klosky; Christopher Brauchli, a practicing lawyer from Boulder, Colorado; and Josh Trevino, a former speech writer for the Bush administration.

Nolan said she wants to provide alternating viewpoints, as reflected by her choice in writers and their respective topics and opinions.

After California’s latest elections, for instance, both Trevino and Nolan wrote about the success of moderation over staunch conservatism. Trevino wrote in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Loss,” that the election outcome was “the bitter fruit of the shunning of conservatives,” while Nolan’s post “Off Base” said the election was “fall-out from the general state of national affairs.”

“Josh is a great writer, and I disagree with him violently on a lot of issues, but he brings a new point of view to discussions that have become one-sided,” Nolan said. “I wanted Republican party politics and national issues from the insider’s point of view.”

The different takes on current politics have definitely paid off, and Spot-on is now Nolan’s full-time job. The site received around 90,000 hits in October.

Approximately 40 percent of the readers are women, the highest of any political blog, according to two surveys done by the site. Most readers are Democrats, while 20 percent are Republicans, and 10 to 15 percent consider themselves independent.

Spot-on grew through links from other blogs, Google AdSense and the audiences and connections of each of the writers.

The biggest obstacle to succeeding in online journalism, or “stand-alone journalism,” as dubbed by Nolan, is the smaller daily tasks required to keep up a site and make sure readership continues to grow.

“You have to think, ‘How do you generate traffic?’, ‘How do you get your name out there?’ Other people want to emphasize not how to get to the reader, but that you get there. But we have writers with unusual perspectives, and there’s strength in that,” Nolan said.

Future plans for Spot-on include finding more conservative writers and including international points of view, particularly voices from India or China.

“I don’t want to have a ‘the Chinese are coming’ mentality,” Nolan said. “I want a writer who can explain China to America.”

Andrew Zi and Alexander Pol were Ph.D. students in the Netherlands when they realized they felt isolated from their colleagues.

“We … felt a lack of scientific news websites for professional scientists,” said Zi.

So the duo created PhysOrg.com, an online scientific community where professional scientists and students can discuss their research and receive the latest news and information in their fields.

“Throughout this year PhysOrg has significantly grown to become a serious project,” Zi said.

Along with physics, nanotech, science and space news sections, it also provides information on the latest technology and electronic devices.

Zi and Pol work closely with universities around the world, most of which are American. They also utilize news organizations such as United Press International and Agence France-Press. About 10 freelance writers provide not only up-to-date information from academic journals and trade publications, but also unpublished research.

PhysOrg boasts nearly 5,000 registered members, with 4,000 more subscribers to its newsletter. It already has a readership of 1.5 million a month, Zi said. About half its monthly readers have a college degree, according to a recent survey conducted on the site. Forty percent work in a science- or technology-related field, while 20 percent are students.

“The results far surpassed our expectations,” said Zi, referring to the rapid growth in readership over the last year.

PhysOrg recently began offering a free magazine section for readers. In the future it plans to cover even more scientific disciplines – including health and medicine — through a partnership with www.HMnews.org, a website specializing in health news.