Well, it happened -- FaceBook is now open to anyone and everyone through the new regional networks feature. When I logged in today I was greeted with an opportunity to invite anyone into the FB.
This was bound to happen. I think I know how students will react to it. On one hand you know it is going to blow the doors off the place in terms of new users ... on the other it is going to piss a whole hell of a lot of people off. The second thing I noticed was an invitation to join a new group ... "Students against Facebook opening to EVERYONE!!!" If you didn't notice that was three exclamation points there ...
Last year at the 2006 TLT Symposium here at PSU we had a student panel and the FB was a major part of the conversation. Students were very clear that they liked it becasue it belonged to them -- not the University and certainly not to anyone outside their network. This changes all that. I am just going to sit back and watch as you know there will be some sort of backlash ... I think we can all remember their last big set of added features. What will this mean to the FB on our campus? I think it will expand it, but this is one of those tipping points where things are never the same. Will students think differently about how they use the FB? Time will tell.
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