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FastCompany goes social
February 11, 2008 | Posted by: Lee
FastCompany.com has totally revamped their online presence and made a huge commitment to creating a social experience for their readers. On Feb 9th, they launched their new site that attempts to blend online journalism with online community.
You can start your own blog, suggest topics for community debates, upload videos, and join groups. According to the post about the change on their site, they're not trying to create experiences like you get on Facebook or MySpace. Instead of creating an online way to connect with people you already know, they're hoping that entirely new relationships will be built and a new community will emerge. (Can't say I see a huge difference from creating affinity groups on Facebook or MySpace, but I love the way they're thinking.)
But it doesn't stop there. On March 3rd they plan to launch an online video network site featuring "bleeding edge technology trends, interviews with leading executives and business people, reviews of the latest technology products, and lifestyle programming". They've hired some heavy hitter popular technology bloggers to contribute content and have build their entire site using Drupal.
They're hoping they will "change how traditional media websites think about online community." Let's watch and see. Do readers want news served up in a two-way community forum, or do they prefer the older one-way approach while leaving the comments to the editorial page?
Tags for this post:
web-centric social media social networking news
Categorized in: Web-Centric, Social Media
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Comments
February 11 2008 - 09:05 PM | by Nicholas
The FC thing looks to me to be a bit of a LinkedIn clone (i.e. business-related social networking) with Blogger, Youtube, and Yahoo Groups (i.e. Facebook) tacked on. Saying they want people to forge new connections and make new communities is nice, but we’ll have to see if it actually happens.
On the MSM is getting into social media tip, CNN is planning on launching a user-generated only site (source), which should make things interesting for Newsvine.
February 12 2008 - 09:53 AM | by Lee
I think FC is trying to make the distinction between social networks where the community builds all the content and one where there is a journalistic calendar that also drives content.
Agree we’ll have to see what happens. Can FC maintain control or will the users take over?
February 12 2008 - 09:25 PM | by Nicholas
I think this guy makes a good point. I have to say that I had similar thoughts when I heard about this. Why should I join the FC social network? Not only am I already starting to get social networking site fatigue (so many profiles, so little time), but what real value does it offer over any of the others? Are they really adding anything new? For me (or any other individual user) or for the social networking landscape in general? At this point, I just don’t see it.
Or is this a case of building something because they think they have to just to “keep up” or fit an image (I can hear the conversation in the board room now, “How can you be called “Fast Company” in 2008 and not have a social network?") I think this is a valid issue to look at for everyone thinking about getting into social media. Let’s not overlook in all the hype and excitement, that just like with other things, it’s not for everybody and “because everyone else is doing it” is an even worse answer for a company than it is for a teenager.