By NYU Staff

When Slate.com decided to start a new business site, The Big Money, it couldn’t have picked a more ominious start date: Sept. 15, 2008, the day that Lehman Brothers, one of the biggest American banks, collapsed. A year later, James Ledbetter, the site’s editor-in-chief, can only marvel at the timing and consider one big question: Will the The Big Money ever make money?

The site had orginally planned to launch as general interest business news site, but changed gears to focus much more on the market crash. Today, readers will see a site that has made yet one more turn to its original plans: covering more technology and social media. As a result, AIG articles have given way to Google stories. Apple’s advertising strategy led the home page recently. The Web site also stepped up its effort to adopt social media itself. In the first week of December, the fans of its Facebook fan page has nearly tripled.

Recently, it also launched The Big Money Facebook 50, a ranking of the brands that are currently making the best use of Facebook. The Web site plans to make the list an annual feature, its own verision of the Fortune 500 but for companies that are social media savvy. “I think it will turn into something like that, but the difference is our list is more subjective,” said Ledbetter.

Indeed, the Big Money list uses various metrics—including fan numbers, page growth, frequency of updates, creativity as determined by a panel of judges, and fan engagement—to decide the ultimate rank on the list, according to the explanation on the site. Readers can send in suggestions and comments on how to rank the list, too, either through its Facebook fan page or directly from the Web site.

Ledbetter says reader involvement remains a central mission for the site. With that open-arm attitude the site’s traffic has responded positively. Including traffic from its parent company, Slate.com, the The Big Money garners 6.8 million unique visitors globally, according to Quantcast, a service that tracks online metrics.

Critics, however, doubt whether traffic means bucks for The Big Money. “I believe it has readers since it offers interesting stories,” said Alan Mutter, an independent media investor and a veteran media executive. “But the question is whether it is attracting advertising and able to become self sustainable.”

James Ledbetter, editor-in-chief of TheBigMoney.com

Such concerns have definitely hit home; last year, two big advertisers, American Express and Infinity Ads, pulled out. “That just said how bad our advertising industry has became in the crisis,” said Ledbetter. Later in the year, the web site re-established a relationship with American Express to cooperate video projects on the site. Dell, meanwhile, exclusively sponsors its current Facebook 50 list project.

Still, The Big Money relies  financially on its mother company, the Slate Group. “We are very dependent on the network to get advertising. Without Slate, there is no Big Money,” Ledbetter said. In the next few years, the Web site’s revenue might not grow big enough to self sustain, but its editorial group believes advertising is going to become the main revenue stream in a long term. And that, Ledbetter believes, relies largely on the quality of content. “Yes, we will be irreverent if we need to be,” said Ledbetter. “As long as its witty and intelligent, and continues to attract advertising.”