The Big Money After A Year

When Slate.com decided to start a new business site, The Big Money, it couldn't have picked a more ominious start date: Sept. 15, 2008, the day that Lehman Brothers, one of the biggest American banks, collapsed. A year later, James Ledbetter, the site's editor-in-chief, can only marvel at the timing and consider one big question: Will the The Big Money ever make money?

The site had orginally plan to launch as general interest business news site, but changed gears to focus much more on the market crash. Today, readers will see a site that has made yet one more turn---to its original plans, covering more technology and social media. As a result, AIG articles have given way to Google stories. Apple's advertising strategy led the home page recently. The Web site also stepped up its effort to adopt social media itself. In the first week of December, the fans of its Facebook fan page has nearly tripled.

Recently, it also launched The Big Money Facebook 50, a ranking of the brands that are currently making the best use of Facebook. The Web site plans to make the list an annual feature, its own verision of the Fortune 500 but for companies that are social media savvy. “I think it will turn into something like that, but the difference is our list is more subjective,” said Ledbetter.

Indeed, the Big Money list uses various metrics—including fan numbers, page growth, frequency of updates, creativity as determined by a panel of judges, and fan engagement—to decide the ultimate rank on the list, according to the explanation on the site. Readers can send in suggestions and comments on how to rank the list, too, either through its Facebook fan page or directly from the Web site.