Life in academia is very focused on the need for publishing scientific papers in workshops, conferences and journals. Surprisingly (or not that much if you happen to be a reader of the excellent PhD Comics), academia is very conservative. The adoption of modern solutions (think blogs, wikis, web, …) is extremely slow. A lot of habits are still rooted in the past.

I recommend the reading of Publish and perish: why the current publication and review model is killing research and wasting your money which is full of very interesting thoughts on this matter. It provides a very interesting discussion on the current publication and review model and provides improvement directions.