IN NOVEMBER 2007, FACEBOOK launched a series of new features including "Pages," which allow colleges, universities, and other schools to create a presence and recruit "fans" among the users of the popular social networking website. Until then, institutions as well as organizations, big companies, or even small businesses were not really welcome on the popular college student online hangout. All were barred from setting up a user profile by Facebook's terms of use. Some institutional offenders even had their accounts taken down, losing all the connections established over time with their Facebook "friends." Before Facebook Pages, institutions could only set up groups, the same groups used by the aficionados of the wildest beer parties or the proponents of the weirdest campus causes.
Within a month after the launch of the new feature, more than 700 Facebook Pages were created by institutions, alumni associations, university offices, and college departments.
What are the reasons behind this impressive adoption rate? Facebook Pages don't cost a dime, are quick to create, and are easy to maintain. As a result, investing a couple of staff hours to Facebook is a no-brainer.
That's probably why higher ed institutions have adopted a more conservative approach with Facebook Platform.
Launched at F8, an event in San Francisco organized last May by the company, Facebook Platform opened windows of opportunity for IHEs. In a press release, the social networking website was "calling all developers to build the next generation of applications with deep integration into
Colleges and universities could leverage the medium to create some robust tools for students.
Facebook, distribution across its 'social graph,' and an opportunity to build new businesses." Six months later, this call had been answered more than 13,600 times with third-party applications fully integrated into the social networking website, engaging 60 million users on a daily basis.
How many of these have been authored by university developers?
Just a very, very small portion.
In mid-December, a search for "university" and "colleges" among listed Facebook applications returned fewer than 200 applications, and most of these had been developed by private third parties.
STUDENT INTEREST GROWS
In the meantime, the incredible success of the first Stanford class covering Facebook applications last fall proved there was a real interest among students, the media, and even venture capitalists for these applications. Taught by BJ Fogg, Dave McClure, and Dan Ackerman-Greenberg, "Creating Engaging Web Applications Using Metrics and Learning on Facebook" was one of the most popular computer science classes offered at Stanford that semester. KissMe, a Facebook viral hit with more than 2 million installations as of mid-January, were designed by students enrolled in this class.
Chris Mocko, one of the Stanford students behind the KissMe application, believes that any application can achieve success, whether it is a mindless one that simply sends kisses to friends, or an educational one that provides more intrinsic value to the user. According to Mocko, the most important rule of thumb for all application developers is to keep things simple. "When KissMe reached 100,000 users, I was shocked at how such a simple application became so popular," he says. Success on Facebook Platform requires a very refined and to-the-point user experience.
Fred Stutzman-a PhD student at the School of Information and Library Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has researched identity, social software, social technologies, computer- mediated communication, and more specifically Facebook-thinks colleges and universities could leverage the medium to create some much-needed, robust tools for students. "However, I would encourage a careful design process. Simply because an application is in Facebook does not mean it will be successful," he points out.
Mike Richwalsky, assistant director for public affairs at Allegheny College (Pa.), has developed a few Facebook applications. He is another strong believer in this proactive yet careful approach. While Facebook applications can offer value to current students or faculty and help institutions connect with alumni, friends, parents, and the local community, they can also bring a powerful marketing opportunity to reach prospective students. Last October at the HighEdWebDev conference in Rochester, N.Y., Richwalsky, along with an Allegheny colleague, Josh Tysiachney, introduced Facebook Platform to a room full of web professionals in a presentation titled "The Game Changer."
