Thoughts about the Facebook
I have been thinking about the Facebook idea for a bit and I am starting to like the idea a lot. Though there is some duplication with systems like Orkut, having a way of seeing what people you are taking classes will make it a lot easier to get to know people in your major (very hard in CS). One thing that we should consider though, is that people might not necessarily publish all their classes on the system for various reasons. People might also try to list classes which they are not actually taking. Should users be given free choice over this, should the system check whether a person is being honest, or just automatically add all classes the person has listed on Axess? I don’t remember the name of the person who had the idea, but if ISIS is going to support this, we should get him a blog account and start discussing issues like this.
Here is a good example of a clean PHP-based site that has class search and profile capabilities (and even nice CSS). This site, CampusExchange.net, came to my attention via Tony.
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I like Axess integration (with the default choice to be unsubscribed, of course).
What in the world is a “campu sexchange”…?
Unfortunate choice of a name…you can tell they tried to minimize it with colors in their logo…
I guess I fail to see the need for this. My social failings at Stanford would have happened with or (as they did) without an online facebook. I see many detriments to this, including the rise of virtual stalking and de-emphasis of personal introductions, and few advantages. Maybe CS majors would want to meet up with their peers online; most others will not.
What I did need at Stanford was online support for projects and classes. Axess integration to groupsATstanford is something I’m much more interested in.
campusexchange is basically trying to mesh ebay/orkut together, providing a peer-2-peer network so that you can buy your friends or friend of a friends stuff, but also providing an online marketplace (ebay) for college students, but really geared towards the niche for college students (like being able to enter a book’s ISBN number when selling a book).
I was working for them, but I quit because I think 1)the technology can be too easily replicated and customized for specific universities, eliminating any comparative advantage that site may have had.
Also, Peter Pawlowski, the guy who brought up the facebook idea, has access to the blog now. Today he told me thefacebook has now reached stanford, which poses a mild threat to our efforts, but if we can release a superior service that’s integrated with other university features and has that axess integration, I think we’ll have the Stanford community hooked in a matter of days.