The Next Engine: Beyond Campaign Thinking

Yesterday Fast Company launched their new web site (still in beta). Seems to me after spending a couple of hours on it this morning that this is the one of the best niche social network/community sites out there right now. Scores big on clean design (sure Davezilla can provide more detail on Drupal), content focus, community, multimedia interactivity, and (more than anything) relevance to its users/readers.

Starting today, we become the first major media website to tackle the following problem: Can a business publication blend journalism and online community to create something better than either by itself?

We think so. If done right. That’s what we’ve been thinking about and working on at FastCompany.com for more than a year now. Why bother in the first place? I could get high minded and talk a bit about what my colleague Jeff Jarvis of www.BuzzMachine.com and the director of the new media program at the City University of New York calls the rise of “networked journalism.”

There are a lot of important reasons why amateurs should be powerfully enabled to participate in journalistic endeavors.

But we’re also doing it because it’s fun. It’s innovative. And it’s very Fast Company.

For someone like me with a personal and professional interest in business, innovation, communication, design and technology, this site has the kind of can’t-miss utility that a pure-play (and walled) community platform like Facebook entirely lacks. If the best Facebook can offer in the way of added value is lowest-common-denominator movie quiz apps then I’m gone. This is the future.