Comments on: Doing it Right?

By: Brett Bixler

Brett Bixler — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:31:50 +0000

If this is done, IMO you need students to populate it, run it, push new things out and maintain it.

Otherwise it’s just another dead web site. The entire idea of a FB group is a dynamic place for social “stuff” to happen.

By: Cole Camplese

Cole Camplese — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:18:20 +0000

@ Ellysa I like that WVU has built a presence outside FB directing folks into their different pages. I also like that they posted a few smart items about identity in their FAQ.

By: Ellysa

Ellysa — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:38:20 +0000

What WVU has done amounts to a very minimal institutional presence on FB.
They created an official ‘Class of 2013′ page (something other schools are also considering doing, in light of commercial spamming on these pages)They created an official WVU Fan page. Penn State has fan page, but it doesn’t look very official–it certainly displays no linkages with any University-wide PR/marketing efforts. This is a missed opportunity.
They created a listing of official WVU groups on Facebook.
All of the above seem like great marketing efforts to me and an opportunity to present a consistent message in an environment where we know a majority of students are. To ignore taking on an institutional approach to this (at least as far as admissions / marketing and PR are concerned) is short-sighted. I think better data portability may be coming, in the form of efforts like Friend Connect, but in the meantime, developing a minimal, institutional, marketing-focused acknowledgment of the importance of FB to students seems like a complete no-brainer to me.

By: Cole Camplese

Cole Camplese — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:05:22 +0000

@ April Nope, right smack in the middle of the topic.

By: Cole Camplese

Cole Camplese — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:04:29 +0000

@ Alan Levine I will post each day. I will not let into my feelings of being utterly overwhelmed. The thing about FB that does bother me are echos of Alan -- what goes in, stays in. Perhaps they are working towards greater data portability, but at the moment it just isn't there. I wonder if that even makes a difference to those who live in it?

By: April

April — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:35:28 +0000

At this point, I think that the University as an institution still supports control as a culture and until we have some brave people begin to change that culture and allow communities to develop naturally, I don’t think that we can construct a community without control smack dab in the middle of it even if the community would police itself.

I have conversations like this all the time which end up coming back to the Penn State brand and what that means to various entities around the University as well as controlling everything about the message from the content to how that content is written to who should be allowed to even send or access the message. Add to that whenever students are mentioned someone brings up student privacy and FERPA whether or not it really applies to the situation like what Brad was talking Penn State’s blog system at ELI last month. So when the institution of the University gets involved at this point in time, control is bound to be involved in some way because I don’t think the folks involved know how not to control. Maybe there is a way to limit the amount of control or to control the control? I hope that wasn’t too far off the original topic.

By: Alan Levine

Alan Levine — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:13:25 +0000

At best the answer to “should Universities maintain an official Facebook presence?” is a “maybe” with all kinds of factors to consider of what is a “presence” and what is “official”. It would make sense, given the numbers you and others share on FB usage, to provide some sort of doorway to socially connecting people with a common interest (go Lions).

Plus, given the spread of FB usage the previous messages of “get outta my FB” does not ring as true; it should all be optional.

But again, the trick is that “presence” be more than PR-ware, a very tricky balance to be “official”.

Statements like “No one knows if X will still be around in five years” don’t do much- no one gets that kind of guarantee. All of the major web services did not exist as theya re now 5 years ago.

And while FB grows like no end on sight, I am concerned as it still seems FB is stingy with the data people put in it. It is now the biggest online photo storage site, yet, once your photos go into FB, it offers no tools, no APIs, no syndication to use that outside (as far as I know). FB sucks content in from other sites and returns nada. For photos, you cannot assign creative commons rights and FB’s TOS gives them the rights to re-use your photos.

PS- If you post every day, I will comment every day

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:44:48 +0000

A University’s Facebook presence is a good idea, but there are still a few reasons to proceed with caution.

No one knows if Facebook will still be around in five years. What if some other company, like Microsoft buys it out? What if they implement new incompatible technologies, popups, ads, increased downtime or they start charging for services? While I believe there should be a presence, I think it should be small yet informative enough to warrant it’s own space.

Also, would we have complete and unrestricted access to our content or would we be at the mercy of Facebook?

By: Cole Camplese

Cole Camplese — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:36:37 +0000

@ Ellysa and @ April I struggle with what it means to "own" the FB presence for an Institution. The other day I got an email from someone in another department asking me how I force people to get on FB and participate in the ETS group ... it actually made me laugh. If you want to connect (as evidenced by all the new connections) then you'll find a way. My fear is constructing a community built around control. I'm just not sure ... more discussion, please!

By: April

April — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:05:29 +0000

As someone currently working on in Student Affair’s, I do see a benefit of having an official Penn State Facebook presence to centralize groups and information. The main benefit that I see (wearing my Student Affairs hat) is that we can provide some education (something like the Do and don’t on WVU’s page) to students and others who join the PSU group or add the page on using Facebook while at the same time adhering to University policy and ethics as they relate to online identities, privacy and common sense.

But as a pragmatic person, I can see why we wouldn’t be able to do something like that very easily too. I think it would take a huge commitment from basically everyone to make this happen at the University level. The entire process could get bogged down in bureaucracy like the University’s website did back in the day with a team trying to decide what should and shouldn’t be represented and what the page should look like. Currently, there are over 500 groups representing departments, campuses, clubs, sports, etc.. Maybe that’s enough?

On a personal note, I’ve been using Facebook a little more than I used to lately. I have had several high school friends find me recently after no contact for over 20 years all in the 37-41 age range. Chris’s mom, my step-mother and my ex-mother-in-law all friended me as well within the last couple of weeks. All three of them are between 57 and 68. So I see that the face of Facebook is changing indeed.