Fast Company Social Media Revolution NOT Off to the Races
The Web’s social media evangelist/consultant enthusiasm for FastCompany.com’s remake in user generated content fashion was notable in its intentsity, led by Fast Company’s Ed Sussman himself. Patting himself on the back for a year’s worth of digital work on behalf of his employer, Mansueto, publisher of Fast Company, Sussman headlined with conviction how “FastCompany.com will alter the digital landscape.”
BUT, is Fast Company really the first to “get it,” as Sussman asserts? It is rarely prudent to unveil a new, unproven product with such lofty definitive pronouncments. Sussman has succeded at one opening salvo, though: Blogosphere regurgitation of his PR spin about just how landscape altering the latest underpopulated social media “community” platform to sprout up on the Web is:
Chris Brogan: “Fast company goes SUPER social, totally social crazy”
Jason Falls: “Fast Company leads with microcommunity home run”
Fast Company “home run”? Their social game has barely begun! What is really so extraordinary about a media publication launching and/or acquiring a Web-based community platform? MSNBC, USA Today, NYT…
Nevertheless, Fast Company collaborator Shel Israel, in not so naked fashion, dutifully seconds the Fast Company “significant” pitch that “it is the most interactive of sites from a major media company.” The “major media company” Mansueto, publisher of niche properties Inc. and Fast Company, is more of a slow Web follower.
Israel does, unwittingly, reveal where FastCompany.com stands though:
The more advice we get from your kind of crowd, the better FastCompany will become.
Such an incestuous “our crowd” stance is what actually hampers FastCompany out of the gate. When I explored the site upon its launch, I was hit with social media consultant self-promos, repostings from social media blogs and blatant spam.
The perennial “web strategist” had his own re-posted blog post about Fast Company itself as the lead “community” feature, Jeremiah Owyang’s “initial analysis.” The strategist begins by underscoring that he “watches the online community space very closely.” Odd then, that Owyang is flip-flopping about one of the most important aspects of the “space”: Monetization.
Earlier in the week, Owyang and fellow Forrester Research staffers Josh Bernoff, Charlene Li and Christine Spivey Overby, “put their heads together” and declared “how social media will thrive” in a recession because it “tends to have lower cost than other forms of marketing.”
I countered, however, that social media is “cheap” for a good reason, it is only worth low CPMs to marketers. SEE: Multiply.com CEO to Facebook, MySpace: STOP Claiming to be Real-Life Social Networks, INTERVIEW
Jeremiah is proud of how he “listens.” Perhaps he read my piece, then. After all, he says now of Fast Company, just days after Forrester made a big public pitch for its social media “effectiveness” PR talking points, that “WITH THE MANY REPORTS SHOWING THAT ADVERTISING ON SOCIAL NETWORKS IS INEFFECTIVE, HOW WILL FAST COMPANY MONETIZE?
REALLY? Not Owyang’s Forrester report of days ago! Will Forrester make up its mind and/or get its semantic positioning straight?
Forrester’s Bernoff himself is backing away from his original “lead” prognistications, claiming semantic misunderstanding, and “clarifying” the “groundswell” that “social applications,” will soon “thrive,” not “social media.” Owyang clearly headlined “social media,” however, and Bernoff still cheers for (parts of) Facebook; So much for semantic back peddaling!
How about FastCompany.com? Monetization is NOT its current priority as it needs to find a community to monetize.
Perhaps Mr. Sussman ought to really join his own community himself: Sussman’s Fast Company blog “Media Maze” alerts “!!!No blog posts have been written for this blog yet!!!
Fast Company may be relying on Robert Scoble to put them on the social media map, but the Scobleizer’s startup video track record is not yet one for the record books.
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