Facebook: A Modern Atlas for the Internet

Remember when Facebook was merely an outlet for social butterflies in college and high school (and dare I say it, middle school)?  There was a time, long ago though it may be, when Facebook was degraded as juvenile, slightly voyeuristic and potentially dangerous.  And then something changed. What it was, even Zuckerberg himself might not know.  But politicians, celebrities, musicians, and corporate executives have all made the Facebook plunge. A new third-party application, “Schools,” which is being developed by Inigral, is looking to offer universities a plot in the Facebook world.  With permitted access to college databases, Schools hopes to bring students together by compiling student information regarding courses and student organizations, in which students participate. The idea builds off of many of the fundamentals that made Facebook successful.  Yet, Schools is being marketed in a rather bold and potentially significant way.  Inigral plans to offer the service to universities for a small per student fee. Although, Abilene Christian University has already partnered with Inigral, it is unclear how interested universities will be in such a service.   It doesn’t appear that universities have that much to gain. However, should Schools emerge as a trend within the university community, universities will be hard pressed to resist the current.  Furthermore, Inigral’s success would lend credence to the concept of a Facebook marketplace.  Other companies might be inspired to use Facebook’s platform as the engine for their products.  The potential for Facebook as a market of its own, independent of its product, is not beyond the scope of possibility and Facebook should do all in its power to promote the success of Inigral and thereafter, its successors. Facebook has already positioned itself as a modern Atlas for our online world, holding up our social and professional networks.  One wonders if it can serve corporations and organizations equally as well. Check out Techcrunch’s great profile of “Schools!”