Facebook Fans for the Collegiate Way
Posted by R. J. O’Hara for the Collegiate Way
29 December 2007 (collegiateway.org) — Long before the Internet, residential colleges produced annual facebooks: printed directories of all their members so everyone could tell who was who. This is still one of the best things you can do to help build a sense of community in any residential college.
Come the Internet age, an enterprising Harvard undergraduate decided to make an online version of his own residential college facebook and to let other people add to it, and facebook.com was born. That was about five years ago, and now this former student is on his way to becoming a billionaire.
Since its inception, facebook.com has only allowed individuals to create personal profile pages, although individuals could also create interest groups that any number of other people could join. But last month a new feature was added: the ability to create profile pages for organizations. The implementation is fairly basic, but it’s principal value is that it lets people become “fans†of organizations they like. The idea is the same as friending another person: it links you into a social network.
So, I’ve just created a facebook.com profile page for the Collegiate Way. Won’t you become a fan? Just go to this page and click “Become a fanâ€:
If you’re not a member of facebook.com yet, it’s free and easy (and you’ll probably find that many of your friends, colleagues, and students are already there). Just go to their main page, sign up, and you’ll be socially networked before you know it.
