First Business App for Facebook Further Alienates College Crowd
by
on June 04, 2008,
As I am just escaping the undergraduate college community, I tend to consider myself something of a Facebook expert. That isn't to say I consider myself an industry analyst or anything like that; as Facebook is as necessary an element of each college student's life as the infamous Cup-O-Noodles, I would probably best label my relationship to Facebook currently "Recovering Facebook Expert."
That being said, I'm intrigued to some degree or another by the direction Facebook applications are going. Initially I wasn't fond of the notion, as customizable applications on Facebook is little better than the gaudy, busy, slow-loading layouts on Facebook's nemesis MySpace. Beyond that, I was not thrilled with Facebook being opened to anyone beyond the college community, because I just knew down to my bones that such a change would alter the vibe and atmosphere that helped Facebook achieve such high levels of success in such a short period of time.
Those two choices made by Mark Zuckerburg have been tossed in some sort of wacky social blender, and the resulting concoction is the creation of business apps for Facebook. The first monetized business app for Facebook has been created by e-Learning provider Udutu, and marks a important moment in Facebook's progress.
The Udutu LMS (Learning Management System) is certainly progressive. Udutu has created a way for educators to directly provide courses and instruction to Facebook users. The setup is fairly simple; install the application and you can create a course in no time. Best of all, the entire course can be conducted entirely on Facebook so you never have to leave the site to tie up loose ends, which tend to be typical of online courses.
A business app like this might be lovely for professionals looking to diversify and build on their training, but it is largely worthless to the entire college community. As I see it, there are effectively two separate groups that actively use Facebook: college students and everyone else. This app is the type of thing designed for the latter category, and further pushes the site away from its original target group.
All personal impressions of Zuckerburg aside, I don't know if I'm completely behind the idea of leaving the college crowd in the dust in favor of advancement. With that said, I don't intend to discredit the application for those who are looking for an easy way to take a few courses online; however, the core group of folks on Facebook that are out to get educated, that being the college community, won't really have much use for this application, and that's the real issue.
I don't believe that the advancements made on Facebook, those being opening the platform and adding applications, are bad things. Far from it; the platform has evolved into something much more advanced. I think Facebook is in a weird transitional phase where implementation of the advancements isn't quite "there" yet. The Udutu LMS is most likely the first serious application of Facebook applications to date, and a step in the right direction.
However, someone who was part of the initial college group that Facebook was tested on has to speak up. The concensus amongst many college-goers is, "Facebook is just becoming another MySpace." There's a very real reason why many college students largely ignored or abandoned MySpace in favor of adopting Facebook. Obviously the college crowd is simply one of many demographics now involved in Facebook. My initial misgivings about Facebook advancements aside, I think it is important to recognize that Facebook's initial target group is feeling alienated on the platform it largely made successful. Shouldn't that count for something?
