Timo Hannay, Nature Precedings is live, Nascent, June 18, 2007. Hannay is Nature's Director of Web Publishing. Excerpt:
...One thing that we've already added since [the launch] is a 'bridge' from our journal manuscript submission system to Nature Precedings. This allows NPG authors to submit their manuscripts for immediate pre-publication in Nature Precedings while they are being considered by the relevant journal. It's heartening to see people already beginning to use this (though as I write the system is misbehaving — please hang on in there while we get it fixed)....
There have been some unfounded initial concerns that Nature will have some special rights to the content, or that we'll be charging for some aspect of the service. On the contrary, all the content is released under the Creative Commons Attribution License and the service is free to authors and readers. In fact we're working with some of our partners to mirror the content to ensure it's long-term free availability (whatever might happen to Nature Publishing Group)....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/20/2007 11:54:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.