Facebook Campus

https://about.fb.com/news/2020/09/introducing-facebook-campus/

by uptown • 6 years ago

87 114 6 years ago

about.fb.com

ghostpepper• 6 years ago

Today, we are launching Facebook Campus, a college-only space

This seems strangely familiar...

synaesthesisx• 6 years ago

It appears they've come full-circle.

fredley• 6 years ago

I remember the early days, when you could only join with a university account, and the only people you could interact with were others in the same network.

Privacy controls were 'public' by default, but then the only people seeing stuff were fellow students anyway. It was fantastic.

I deleted my Facebook account a few years ago for various reasons, but they had a really great product back then. Somehow I doubt this will capture the charm of v1.

gxqoz• 6 years ago

The killer feature for me in Facebook's early days is that people could list the classes they had. This made it easy to message your classmates to get help on an assignment.

citizenkeen• 6 years ago

I was studying abroad when Facebook started expanding beyond Harvard. I was in a dorm filled with liberal arts students from across the US.

I remember when about a third of us got "approved" for Facebook, and two thirds were just jealously wondering why their elite private liberal art schools weren't "good enough". I've never seen a clearer case of envy/FOMO.

minimaxir• 6 years ago

Surprisingly, Harvard is not on the list of trial colleges.

xxpor• 6 years ago

Did Facebook invent a time machine to go back to 15 years ago?

choiway• 6 years ago

Is this an April Fools joke?

libraryofbabel• 6 years ago

I stood on a hill and I saw the Old approaching, but it came as the New. It hobbled up on new crutches which no one had ever seen before and stank of new smells of decay which no one had ever smelt before.

Bertolt Brecht, Parade of the Old New. (1939)

digitalsushi• 6 years ago

Jokes aside that this is how FB started, I wonder if this is a reaction to recent claims that FB has a general political slant, and that this might be a way to isolate and segregate people associated with colleges.

munificent2• 6 years ago

I wonder if this is a reaction to recent claims that FB has a general political slant

I don't want to generalize too much from my own window into Facebook, but it does look like they may be in a feedback loop. As more and more toxic conservative garbage gets reshared, progressives start ditching Facebook. That means the remaining userbase likes that stuff more, so the feed gets tuned to make it more prominent. That turns off more progressives, who drop out. Rinse, lather, repeat.

When I go on Facebook now, it looks like Internet Fox News, and that's despite trying very hard to unfollow the people who reshare that stuff.

Even the left-leaning content on Facebook has gotten more extreme and virulent. It's just a miserable hellhole now of two tribes screaming at each other while the feed AI fans the flames.

ponker• 6 years ago

But wouldn't that feedback loop work the other way too? That there's someone saying "as more toxic liberal garbage gets reshared, conservatives start ditching Facebook"? Leaving just the people who enjoy screaming at each other?

bmarquez• 6 years ago

As more and more toxic conservative garbage gets reshared, progressives start ditching Facebook.

I think this is a function of the friends you have, and what Facebook assumes you like to see based on the pages your friends like (lookalike audience targeting). When I was more active on Facebook, there was a lot of left-wing direct action, and zero Fox News stuff.

Maybe find different friends :)

adim86• 6 years ago

I think Facebook is bleeding college age people to Instagram (yes I know it is owned by FB), snapchat and the likes and this is serious ad revenue, if allowed to continue all spells the death of a platform. Form me this is a signal of fear or desperation to save the website facebook. Facebook the company is VERY fine and healthy, but I think Facebook the website is in trouble

ghaff• 6 years ago

I wonder what engagement on Facebook looks like overall. Anecdotally, I haven't seen many in my (older) circle "rage quitting" Facebook but I've seen a lot of people going from using it pretty regularly to using it rarely or to a first approximation of never.

nerevarthelame• 6 years ago

The release of this certainly means that they don't think that they're reaching as many college students as they could, which might be framed desperation, given FB's origins. But I personally think that's an overly pessimistic interpretation. I'm not sure what signs would point to the Facebook platform as a whole approaching "death." Their number of active users (for just Facebook, not Instagram or anything else) have been consistently growing each quarter - even specifically in the US.

graham_paul2• 6 years ago

It doesn't matter that you are getting more users if those users are old and that's basically what is happening to Facebook. FB these days is just a place where content gets recycled, original content, viral memes and cultural trends happen elsewhere (TT, IG, etc). Just try to list the number of public figures (that young people care about) that use FB as its main channel? Now compare that against TT, IG, etc.

FB managed to buy IG and WhatsApp but they won't always be able to buy their competitor or copy them

awad• 6 years ago

Despite their best efforts to do so, I would argue that most people don't know that FB owns Instagram or WhatsApp. For college-aged people, IG, TikTok, and Snap are what they live in.

puranjay• 6 years ago

These people are never going to come back to Facebook. No one moves to last generation's social network.

The lifespan of any social network is effectively only one generation long. Which is long enough to make a lot of money, but not long enough to build a business that lasts a lifetime.

tylercubell• 6 years ago

Yo dawg, I heard you like Facebook, so I put a Facebook in your Facebook so you can Facebook while you Facebook.

maxaht• 6 years ago

This would have been really cool maybe 8 years ago. Almost everyone I know at my university uses Facebook only for sharing "life updates" with older relatives who aren't on more trendy social media sites.

ericlewis• 6 years ago

This was really cool about 16 years ago, when Facebook launched. Because this is what Facebook used to be.

smoyer• 6 years ago

Today, we are launching Facebook Campus, a college-only space designed to help students connect with fellow classmates over shared interests. Facebook Campus makes it easy to find and start conversations within your college community.

Tomorrow we're rebranding as "TheFacebook" and will only be available to Harvard students.

zucked• 6 years ago

Seriously - this is a rehashed version of Facebook when only open to '.edu' email accounts.

asdfman1232• 6 years ago

I think that's the point. Facebook was so much more fun when it was dumb college student stuff -- and not a forum for every person you know to view and comment on.

joshgachnang• 6 years ago

Amusingly, it is not launching for Harvard students this time around. The campus list seems very odd and scattershot.

saagarjha• 6 years ago

This sounds par for the course for any sort of rollout of technology in education.

Apocryphon• 6 years ago

It's not really a true reboot unless they get rid of the Newsfeed in this space, and doubtless they won't.

throwawaysea• 6 years ago

When Facebook first launched and was only available on certain campuses, it had an intimate and safe feeling. It was used primarily to share experiences with friends. The site was simple and compact. Feeds had a high signal to noise ratio, and it was about personal connection rather than political warfare. Somehow, unless they take on a content policy that bans news/politics/etc, I doubt they can get back to that place from where society is today. Even if the software was exactly the same as it was, we have changed and we have been changed in large part by social media these last 15 years.

kube-system• 6 years ago

A ban on political content won’t make fb what it was before. The toxic political content is a symptom of the problem, not a cause.

The community is the difference. Social bubbles on fb are now huge, and include people with wildly varying ideas for what they want to get out of social media. People naturally segregate different aspects of their social life in their real-world interactions, but that nuance is completely lost on fb.

ve552• 6 years ago

I view one of the largest reasons for this as trying to ensure they keep user retention for younger demographics for live chat, which they've been lagging behind quite a bit compared to e.g. Discord. If Facebook completely loses their young demographic network effects it would be very difficult for them to regain them.

This will be tough as Discord is currently happily enjoying its unlimited growth and no profits phase, and has enough network effects that it's almost impossible to not use it as a young Internet-using male in many countries.

searchableguy3• 6 years ago

Or if you are an open source developer. Many projects have moved to discord only approach with no public forums.

Nbox93• 6 years ago

If Facebook completely loses their young demographic network effects it would be very difficult for them to regain them.

Facebook has had incredible success at mimicking other companies’ features, and when that fails purchasing major competitors. Discord is still niche, and I suspect their marketing and image will make it hard to break out of ‘gamer’ culture.

_bohm• 6 years ago

Just as a data point: I'm a member of several Discord communities, none of which are gaming-related.

I've also noticed more recently that people are starting Discord communities around all kinds of non-gaming topics. Very commonly they seem to revolve around a public persona, like a YouTube celebrity, a musician, or a podcast host.

ve552• 6 years ago

I disagree that Discord is niche at this point. They're already worth several billion and it's still growing significantly, with perhaps several hundred million users and very high user-retention, usage, network effects, and proprietary lock-in. I'd still invest in Discord today if I could, in a heartbeat.

s3r3nity• 6 years ago

I think the Facebook site will be _very_ different in the next few years than what we're traditionally used to.

The strategy that Facebook has been pivoting towards is in favor of smaller community building, rather than the "mass market square" approach, which is why:

1) Groups have been more prominent and getting quite a bit of promotion

2) Messenger has gotten quite a bit of UX improvements

3) New features like "Rooms," which favor small / intimate video conversations

4) Investments in hardware experiences like Portal, which have been heavily marketed towards family communication thus far (successfully it seems, looking at their last revenue #'s.)

5) Facebook Workplace, which was a smart B2B play anyway, but also aligns with their "micro-community" approach

Zuck messaged this new pivot IIRC around the last US presidential election, but it may have started before that. Therefore I would expect to see more of these types of experiences:

"Facebook Campus" - "Facebook Workplace" - "Facebook [TBD]"

gwbas1c• 6 years ago

What's interesting about your comment is how Facebook, as an online community, has lost all context that other online communities had.

Think about people griping about work. You could do that in older online communities, but now that everyone knows everyone on Facebook, a gripe about work is probably going to be seen by your colleagues and potential employers and...

Basically, the concept of an online community that has boundaries away from your IRL (in real life) community is gone. (Or, everyone's mother and kids have Facebook accounts.)

asdff• 6 years ago

I remember that fateful day in highschool where the parents volte-faced and joined facebook, and the site was ruined forever. then came the aunts and uncles and grandma and your boss from two jobs ago. eternal september, but the influx didn't ever stop and here we are with billions of users and a mess.

ianhawes• 6 years ago

You can't forget about Facebook Marketplace, which is arguably more successful than Groups.

typon• 6 years ago

Marketplace is practically killing Cragslist and Kijiji where I am (Toronto area)

systemvoltage2• 6 years ago

I have an unsettling feeling that this will accelerate the cohesion in fringe groups such as QAnon, Boogaloo, Antifa, etc.

bhupy2• 6 years ago

In other words, technology that makes our lives easier can be used by people we don't like to make their lives easier also.

bastardoperator2• 6 years ago

But who likes this stuff? Who really wants to use it? I don't know anyone especially the younger crowd as I have teenagers, that want anything to do with facebook

pavlov• 6 years ago

I don't know about those specific features, but I'm always surprised how people make assumptions about a global service with over two billion users based on an extremely local sample of anecdotes.

"I don't think anybody in the world buys fish because I live in Montana and my kids hate it"

opportune• 6 years ago

I would use a social network that only my actual friends were on. When I was in college I would have found a college-only social media site useful and enjoyable. The biggest problem with most social media is they are too impersonal due to having too many disparate connections (eg my aunt, a former boss, my best friend, a former acquaintance from high school) and they shove “influencers” and other popular content down your throat.

I can imagine that Facebook will be able to create a decent platform for young people if they only have to worry about adding features/promoting content that young people like.

RandallBrown2• 6 years ago

I use and like a lot of this stuff.

I use Messenger with a group of friends because it seems to be a pretty reliable way of group texting between iOS and Android (text messages were coming in out of order) and we all have Facebook accounts.

We all use Facebook to plan group events. Things like birthday parties, vacations, and where we're all going to stay for weddings.

I'm in a few local Facebook groups for things like trail running and hiking. They're great for getting information about current conditions.

Facebook Marketplace has been better than Craigslist or Offerup since it's a little more likely to be a real person (or at least it's a little easier to tell if they are based on their profile.)

It' also nice that I don't need to have a dozen different accounts to do all this stuff.

I'm not a teenager, but all the teenagers I know use Instagram.

solarkraft• 6 years ago

I have just stopped being a teenager, but my interest in memes is actually surprisingly well covered by facebook - there are groups for all kinds of niches.

It's sort of like Reddit, but a little less crappy.

That said I don't really use it because I have a very bad memory of the company and the site, so the hurdle to ever opening it up is quite high.

omnibrain• 6 years ago

Groups have been more prominent and getting quite a bit of promotion

But they made them worse with the new look. You can‘t see the number of new posts anymore so if you are in slow moving groups you have to click on them to check for new posts. So instead of checking FB several times a day to see if there is a significant count of new posts in one of my groups I switched to checking once a day and just looking into my favourite groups.

all_usernames• 6 years ago

Facebook Dystopia - An online meeting place for your side, after the collective national identity is no longer viable.

alangibson• 6 years ago

Amongst other things, I think they're trying to keep from being unbundled. Right now they're vulnerable to someone else doing what they did to Myspace et. al., having college students peeled off into some other more targeted service.

koolba• 6 years ago

Any idea if the schools are getting directly or indirectly paid to be a part of this?

zacharycohn• 6 years ago

Everything old is new again.

jimmysong• 6 years ago

I guess Facebook is coming for Reddit.

gdsdfe• 6 years ago

haha full circle

nscalf• 6 years ago

Aside from the "Facebook just launched Facebook" side of this, I think it's really interesting that they're launching this on Facebook instead of acquiring/building a new network. It seems like social networks roll on cycles, you don't want to use your older sibling's social network. Their acquisitions also hint that they agree. My guess is that there is some concern internally about owning another major social network, combined with dropping numbers of young people coming on to Facebook.

asdfman1232• 6 years ago

Speculating: maybe they want to pipeline former students to their main product after they graduate.

Maybe they decided instead of risk another social media site going through the same lifecycle as Facebook did and fragmenting market share, they could keep it all under one roof. I suppose it could also be an attempt to keep the engineering simpler, too.

Hardly an expert, though.

kome• 6 years ago

My university is a joke, and therefore I am sure they will adopt this soon without thinking to any of the consequences.

Basically Facebook want to fully substitute email within colleges.

What could go wrong?

This is not for users, it is more for university admins.

chendragon• 6 years ago

Might be unrelated, but when I visit this page in a private browsing session on iOS 14 and play the video I get a modal saying Facebook would like to use cookies and website data, and if you allow they can track me. If I don't allow, the video stops playing. If I do nothing, the video plays in the background.

https://ibb.co/Bc2t2mK

azangru• 6 years ago

They want to make Facebook cool again?

actuator• 6 years ago

If FB doesn't have a play on education yet, they might want to capitalise on remote classes through video/transcripts. Possibly have a piazza equivalent built in and make it more accessible to schools.

ape4• 6 years ago

"Hello fellow kids"

IvyMike• 6 years ago

The Poochie of social networks.

sriram_sun• 6 years ago

So cost of entry is $20k and up per year? In other news, Deans of admission might be silently thanking Zuck for this feature!

jl2718• 6 years ago

Next will be Facebook takes on business networks with something like Blind with strong identity.

b_ocu2• 6 years ago

Checkout workplace.com

deeeeeplearning• 6 years ago

Actually Mindblown. Next thing you know Google is going to release "Google Search, find what you're looking for on the internet!"

bcatanzaro2• 6 years ago

You know. A product focused only on search and not on advertising, where the goal was really to help people find what they're looking for - that might be a revolutionary product. And Google would be in a great position to launch it...

tempodox• 6 years ago

That name sounds like a place where you can get a degree in user tracking. I'm almost disappointed.

stinger• 6 years ago

Did facebook just relaunch facebook?

holler2• 6 years ago

lol, so meta...

bilater• 6 years ago

Did they just...go back to 2006?

rllearneratwork• 6 years ago

glad to see my alma mater NOT in the list.

beenBoutIT• 6 years ago

Keeping college separate from the world at large is a good idea. Back when Facebook was exclusive to people with university '.edu' email accounts there was a massive shitstorm when everything got opened up to the general public. All of the sudden pictures of students drinking and doing drugs were visible to potential employers, non-students and the 'real world'. It seems that this new Facebook for universities won't have the same problem as it's not going to be merged back with regular FB.

bcatanzaro2• 6 years ago

The circle of life has rotated - we're now in a position where "Facebook but for Facebook" is an innovation. ;)

12xo2• 6 years ago

Facebook is AOL circa 1997. When it seemed that they'd be a dominate player forever... Fast forward a few years and were are almost non-existent. A few more and they were gone all together.

Never forget that the internet is awash in dead companies and sites that were extremely popular and powerful, until they werent.

Facebook is a giant, but its dominance in the USA and the EU is likely short lived.

dweekly• 6 years ago

And the same comment was made about Facebook practically a decade ago, pointing to MySpace and Friendster. Yet DAU, MAU, and engagement continue to grow. Some of this, perhaps, is due to Facebook's keen awareness of its own mortality and the several times that they had to navigate out of near existential crises. Just look on the backside of the logo out front of their HQ. Memento mori.

12xo2• 6 years ago

Yeah but those are not my comments, and it's not today.

It is not competition that will kill Facebook, its the change in people's behavior. Very different from the competitive view you take.

The death of Facebook will be from both in how people interact with each other and tech. Whether its a fundamental shift in comm(mobile phones) or a leap in tech like serverless / peer to peer that removes the need for a central service. Eventually, Facebook will not exist anywhere near its current form.

Remember, FB not a service like Google that serves the user. You dont need them to do anything but connect to other people. If you dont need to use FB, you wont. For now, its easier and working very well at scale. But that's temporary. Maybe 10 years. Maybe longer... One day it too will be a memory, owned and operated by a PE firm that specializes in brands.

limeblack• 6 years ago

A mobile version of messenger.com would be nice also.

On budget phones(think 8GBs) web apps are the best solution but yet there is only a mobile version of Facebook.com.

nateburke• 6 years ago

Announcing:

Microsoft Operating System

Amazon Online Bookstore

Google Internet Search

Facebook Campus

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