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?
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Svetlana Gladkova
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
Good insight…nice post!
Mark Salinas
Insights on the World of Business Management
All in the name of progress… Unfortunately, Facebook moving away from the college market it was built on is a reality long gone by. Appealing to the masses versus appealing to a particular niche (even if that niche is a huge one like college students!) is a critical business decision.
Where the social networking world falls out in the long run will be interesting to see. Will people spend the majority of time on mass networks that contain the majority of their contacts or prefer niche networks where people have a natural affinity with one another?
Well written article, at least Facebook will alway bet better than Myspace.
What a though-provoking article. As a training company owner, I am diligently looking across all emerging technologies to find the ones that make the m ost sense for training delivery. Facebook has come up because so many Millenials use it. Unfortunately, market and opportunity will drive the direction Facebook goes. The only constant is change…and Facebook is changing as more and more employers discover it - and want to tap into its power. College students are a very small market compared to a global workforce. Facebook will follow the money trail.
Do I personally believe it’s a great vehicle for delivering training? I honestly can’t say. I’d like to take a course within it and see what I think. I do believe we need a much greater array of tools for helping people learn virtually.
Hey Triston,
Thanks for the post. I’m actually a member of the team working on UdutuTeach and UdutuLearn. The idea behind our app was to bring training to where the learners are instead of trying to convince learners to join some new web application. Users in social networks are already organizing themselves into groups based on their school and/or where they work whether those institutions realize it or not. Facebook was merely the initial launching point for UdutuTeach and UdutuLearn, we will also be launching on Linkedin and social networks built on the Google OpenSocial framework.
Unfortunately I can see your concerns about the direction Facebook is taking away from its core audience. I originally joined Facebook as a way to stay in touch with my friends from school and stay in the loop socially, but now it seems to have become a different animal entirely - my parents even use it. But our app need not be looked at as purely a business app. We’ve had interest now from several European colleges and universities looking to offer supplementary courses to their students through Facebook. And possibly when those students graduate, their new jobs will offer them professional tools in an online environment they already know and feel comfortable in. They may just have to hide the pictures of themselves at Spring Break.