TED.com, the online library for lectures from the non-profit Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference recently launched TED Conversations, their foray into the social media space.  As they put it “…a new social platform on TED.com that connects people for conversation, collaboration and debate. TED Conversations was designed and built from the ground up to foster meaningful conversation among the global community…”

The basic concept is for members to begin a conversation. All posts are then placed into one of three categories: Ideas, Questions, or Debates.  Now comes an interesting twist, all conversations have an expiration date. All are set to expire in either one day, one week or one month. After the conversation has been closed the original poster is invited to summarize the discussion with a closing statement.

There are two reasons I find TED Conversations worth mentioning.  The first is that this is a social media push that is not on Facebook, and the other is that this is a great example how to use social media to truly engage your audience. Almost none of the posts are from TED. The site encourages the people who watch their lectures to spark their own conversations and empowers them to moderate and summarize them as they see fit.

Some Intriguing Conversations I saw while looking over the site include:

• In Ideas: “What can we do, as citizens to promote tolerance in our daily lives?”
• In Questions: “Who fired the dynamite of the Big Bang?”
• In Debates:  “If raising children is one of the most important things we do in society, shouldn’t the subject be directly taught in schools?”

This is certainly an effort that has some lofty goals but it fits perfectly with the brand that has ownership of the site and their tag line: “Ideas worth Spreading.”