Big Think

The Idea

In the global digital age, there is a glut of accessible information. And while this information empowers you, the citizen-consumer, the only way to make any sense of it, is to begin an interactive relationship with the global thought leaders who can deliver the best news and analysis on the Web. Welcome to Big Think.

The Forum

Big Think is a global online forum connecting people and ideas. Through an ever-expanding platform of knowledge content, including in-depth interviews with the world’s leading experts, Big Think is a vital hub for important information to help you function, and succeed, in a rapidly changing world. In keeping with our belief that crucial information should be freely shared, discussed and debated, we have developed a full menu of tools to engage, disseminate, and subscribe to uniquely powerful content. Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, Digg.com, Delicious, Google Reader, Vimeo, YouTube, a personal blog, Tumblr, or any application with an RSS feed, Big Think allows you to share bright ideas with the wider Big Think audience as well as your personal cadre of lively thinkers—quickly and easily.

The Network

With Big Think, following, emailing, friending, and messaging others, all from a personal content hub—while simultaneously publishing original content and remixing archived content—is all possible. Our networking functions allow the creation, import and aggregation of ideas, in any media, from across the web, allowing you to directly interact with the great minds of our time. Because every idea counts, the broader Big Think community can nominate users with the sharpest ideas and most cogent thinking to achieve expert status, giving active users greater control over the content that all of us read, watch, debate, and learn from, every day. In addition, semantically-related content will be packaged with unique interviews and outside videos to frame different perspectives from around the web. We will also syndicate fresh content via RSS from every corner of the site. Our blogs collect and give voice to the brightest ideas and most cutting-edge news from around the world. Our podcasts help navigate the new, global world on the go.

The Experts

Big Think hosts personal homepages for each of our experts and active users—multimedia rich mini-websites administered by Big Think editors and the experts themselves—which utilize sophisticated technology to capture relevant ideas, contacts, and content as they emerge into the Big Think sphere. Big Think homepages promote direct relationships with experts’ followers and subscribers; provide direct links to distribution channels, like Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.; curate imported and aggregated content related from YouTube, any personal blog, etc.; and automatically generate related news and media headlines from around the Web. All of this is created dynamically, based on specific keywords and algorithms, which we change and update regularly for style and timeliness. And all of this is reached with an easy and notable URL: http://www.bigthink.com/thoughtleader