As you know, about 110% of our students use Facebook, the social networking website targeted to college students.
Students use it all the time and include a lot of information (sometimes too much) about themselves in their profiles.
Facebook released its API – its development platform – in beta earlier this week as announced on their developer website:
If you’re reading this post it means we’ve officially launched our new developer portal. This is the beta version and we’ve been working hard to provide you with a sweet development platform. (…) Facebook Developers will be evolving over the coming months, so keep your eyes peeled here for updates, or subscribe to our feed to stay up-to-date.
So, what type of data can you play with?
The Facebook Development Platform allows you to create applications utilizing the following data from Facebook: profiles, photos, friends and events.
I guess it won’t be long until some smart people in charge of students or alums relations offer some customized services to “their” Facebook users.
What would YOU like to do?
I am at once both terrified and intrigued… I am eager to see what is developed with this API. I wouldn’t mind seeing just some of the obvious things, either–like 3d friend webs to see how incestuous people are, etc. Hopefully we’ll see some creativity expressed too.
From an initial look, I think you have to initiate an authenticated session with facebook before you can do anything through the api–meaning that a user needs to login with their facebook creds before they can access whatever special goodies you write with it. Not sure how useful that would be in a wider context…
But I’m definately still going to tinker with it.
Sam,
Interesting point. I’m not sure colleges will go for the 3d friend webs though. But, thanks for the suggestion.
Morgan,
For our students (and young alums) logging in wouldn’t be a problem.
If we develop something serving our needs using the platform they already use, I’m pretty sure adoption won’t be a problem. And again, I’m really talking about work done in Alum Associations.
Karine –
Great catch! We were just lamenting the fact that Facebook wasn’t releasing its API. How fast do you think campuses will hop on this trend?
Charlie,
I think we will start to see some new applications in a few months.
If higher ed institutions don’t move on this, third-party developers (or entrepreneurial students) will create the applications and sell them to universities and colleges…