The Guardian is often held up as a great example of how social tools can be integrated into a website to create a real community feel. Well, this article (via Mark Earls) demonstrates how powerful that community can then be. I love seeing this type of feedback loop, where a brand is driven to provide ever more creative ways to interact and the commmunity responds with enthusiasm.

(Photo by internets diary)

There are some really interesting lesson here for any brand (beyond the four outlined). The required speed of response is telling - they had to launch untested. The identification of the correct tools to use. Their instinctive understanding of design and social media participation tools - make it fun, make it visible, reward those who get most involved with recognition (more whuffies?).

It's also nice to know that there is a lab at Harvard working out what journalism is going to do in the internet age. That'll be added to my RSS feeds.