Economist invests $200,000 in social media experiment

Project Red Stripe Sounds a fascinating project Jeff Jarvis explains

six people — from editorial, classified, marketing, data sales, technology — who have been given six months, $200,000, and the freedom to use any content from any Economist property to come up with something new for the magapaper. They made it onto the team by applying and sharing their ideas. Their only instructions: to make it innovative and put it on the web. They say they will know they have succeeded when they present their big idea and get someone saying, “I don’t get this at all.”

The Project Red Stripe team and I started off with a debate about blogging. The Economist is blogging but, in Economist tradition, they are doing so anonymously. I said this is a clash of orthodoxies. Blogs are conversations with people. The irony is that the other side of this debate came from the guy who got on this team by pushing blogging and who acts as the team blogger, Tom Shelley. He defends the Economist voice as a human voice of its own. Fun discussion. We talked about community and they raised provocative, Economistian questions about the fragility of communities and the value. And more.

Comments

[Tom]

Hi Alan, I work at Project Red stripe and am glad you find the Project appealling. I think its a heck of an opportunity. Do you have any idea what Project Red Stripe should do to engender community? And to help brands? Would love to hear from you, Tom

[Alan moore]

Hello Tom,

I would be happy to chat about this, why not drop me a line alanm (AT) smlxtralarge (DOT) com

Thanks for dropping by

Alan