With the  improved FastCompany.com we have vastly improved tools for integrating our community with the publishing arm of  the website. With this rejuvenation, the online community is becoming as much  of a priority as the site's editorial content. This means that your voice will  carry as much weight as the magazine and online staffs' writers. And you'll be  able to connect with one another based on the quality of your ideas, not just  resumes.

If you're worried that this will be just another LinkedIn,  rest easy. Quite the opposite -- we have a tradition going back many years  that connects people based first and foremost on their business ideas. Now  those ideas will be front and center on FastCompany.com.

We've spent  many months building the new site but it's not done yet --- while we've polled  many of you, now we need beta testers to really put the site through its paces  before we bring it live to the public.

Here are a few more details: all  Company of Friends groups and profiles will remain, but the options for  participation on Fast Company.com will dramatically increase.

Members  will not only be able to create and join groups and post events and messages,  but they will also blog for themselves or their group, micro-blog about  questions posed by our editors, pose questions to the community, send and  receive private messages, partcipate in discussions, rate content, and more.  This content will be prominently featured on our homepage and throughout  the site, alongside our Fast Company articles and blogs, on a daily basis. It  will also go out on our RSS feed to many hundreds of thousands of  subscribers.

What's Next?

In the beta phase, current COF membership will allow you to test out the  site's new features and add more information to your profile. For all other  beta testers, membership will be invite only during this period. Beta testers  will be an integral component of providing you with stable core features.  We'll be looking for honest feedback during this period.

What Happens to Groups?

Original CoF  groups will be moved over, as will the existing moderators, but we are also  looking for new groups and new group moderators related to the site's core eight topics: innovation, technology, leadership, management, careers, design,  social responsibility and work/life. These will be excellent forums for  contributing ideas that will form the basis for meeting people and making  business connections.

What Will Moderators Do?

Group  moderators are the main contact of a group. They steer the exchange of ideas  with interesting topics while ensuring that all interaction within the group  adheres with FastCompany.com Codes of Conduct. You don't need to have a large  amount of time on your hands to do this, or be an expert in your field, but  you do need to be dedicated, excited to meet new people, and able to carry on  a great conversation.

While you'll be able to set up your own groups as  soon as the beta launches, if you'd like to be considered as a moderator for  one of the core topic groups of FastCompany.com, please send me a message. We are also looking for expert bloggers to be featured  within these core topic areas and we'd love to hear from you about that,  too.

I look forward to talking to all of you in the coming months as we  conduct online and in person discussions about what we're  doing.

Best,

Lynne
Senior Editor, FastCompany.com