StudentFace – a Social Network for Australian Students

Nowadays we have various social networks for almost all of our online activities and communications. Today I would like to review a social network for Australian students that is very young but seems to be lively already – StudentFace. The founders of StudentFace were inspired by the mesmerizing success of Facebook. They thought if such a success was possible at all, it could be possible in Australia as well. And so this August the project was launched.

For me the strangest thing in social networks for people in a certain stage of their lives (like students in this case) is that users might leave the network eventually – after graduation, for instance. But the people behind StudentFace are sure that thenetwork is intended first to gather all your university friends in one place and keep in touch with them after graduation. Besides, they also target school students, year 11 and 12. This increases the life cycle of each member by two years. Once a student graduates from university he or she is still able to use StudentFace, by simply providing their primal email account. So if a person amassed many friends through university life it would be unwise for a member who has already graduated not to continue using the network.

For me personally the most interesting thing about all the numerous social networks is to find something unique about this or that network. And StudentFace is really unique at least in one thing. This thing is that every university member is verified. Meaning it is a real person who you can meet on campus, not just online. So the information that flows between members is much more valuable once again they can meet in person and continue evolving ideas. And no one would want to distribute improper or offensive information because everyone would know who exactly is behind this or that piece of information.

But after being an absolutely closed system for Australian students StudentFace was approached by users requesting that they allow their non university friends to join them on StudentFace. There definitely was a risk in opening the system – the unique feature of knowing people behind the nicknames really existed could be lost. But the way out was found finally: a new global network was added. This way the university networks remained closed, thus retaining their uniqueness. But at the same time the university students were given an opportunity to have their friends in the same system. The people who register under the global network do not have direct access to university networks, however, they are able to join their friends who are in university network.

StudentFace is a full-featured social network with all the generally-used capabilities for its members: building a profile, having friends, joining groups, storing and sharing photos and videos online, sending messages to other members of the network. It also permits to create events to meet other students offline. Recently blogging functionality was added, too.

After using the system for several weeks myself I can definitely say that it’s very simple, user-friendly and comfortable to work with. Would I recommend using it? Of course, if you are an Australian student. This will bring you to a friendly online community of people who are around you in your real life and find some useful information they are willing to share. But I am only wondering if anyone has a chance for real success when the only thing they do is clone someone else’s network? Let’s wait and see if new successful social networks grow from all these numerous clones.