TechBays

Today Robert Scoble announced his move to FastCompany. He is now the Managing Director of FactCompany.TV.

Robert says

So, why FastCompany.tv? Why not something else? Several reasons.

1. Fast Company (the magazine) has seen a resurgence in the past year. The content has gotten better. Ad sales were way up. They have new offices in New York City (I won’t be moving, rather staying in Silicon Valley).
2. The editorial team at Fast Company and Inc. Magazines is getting cover articles that few others are able to get and the whole team will drive a lot of great content that’ll show up on my show and on the network.
3. They have invested in a major new social networking site that’ll be revealed soon. Fast Company was one of the first magazines with a social network, called “The Company of Friends” and the new site, built in open-source Drupal, excited me because of the distribution and community it brings.
4. They are working on a new magazine aimed at startups, too, which obviously I’m interested in.
5. They have a sales team that’s already successful in selling to clients outside the tech industry (getting diversity is important to protect independence and also to bring fresh approaches to events and advertising).
6. They liked my participatory style of video better than other companies and want to expand it. Excited about technologies like Qik, Kyte, Seesmic, Mogulus, DotSub, etc. Other people/companies I talked with had blank stares when I talked about these technologies and how they might change the media business.
7. They have a tech team who understands how to integrate various Web technologies together. My column’s page on Fast Company , for instance, has a calendar from Upcoming.org and a feed from Google Reader integrated into it along with video interviews and other things. We’ll expand that kind of integration on the new network.

Comment by Ed Sussman, president of  Mansueto Digital, producer of FastCompany

 As Managing Director, Robert will help FastCompany.TV create its entire editorial line up, not just his own shows. He’ll also work with us to choose the right video technology for the site, the right design, and the best way to offer the video offerings to the one million plus readers of FastCompany.com. And he has an important say as to the role our sponsors will have on the video network. But we’ll take care of almost all of the more mundane non-editorial tasks (negotiating and writing contracts, doing payroll, billing sponsors, preparing sales presentations, serving ads, buying software, finding distributors for the shows, etc.) to clear up Robert’s schedule for reporting. As a company with 170 employees, owned by Joe Mansueto, the billionaire founder of Morningstar, we have all the resources in place to support a solid business. We’re also a company laregly run by journalists who believe editorial excellence is our primary mission. We’re very excited Robert decided to join us.

Filed under: Startup | Tagged: Fastcompany, Mansueto Digital, Scobleizer