For an idea that, as everyone now knows, started with bored students at a university, Facebook might just be developing all the elements necessary to replace the campus. Maybe not literally. With college enrollment reaching a record 19.1 million students this year, boosted by a rise in the college-age population and a stubborn 10 percent unemployment rate, young people aren’t exactly giving up their degree prospects for more time with Zuckerberg. But the site is developing many of the features that students now pay anywhere between $12,283 and $31,233 each year to pick up from college. And Facebook is free.

The most vital of those features is knowledge. In theory, at least, universities are supposed to teach information and skills. It’s what students are lining up to receive and it’s on the basis of the knowledge they want to learn that they choose their majors. And yet how much of the knowledge that students learn — especially in the humanities — is actually usable? How much do they remember? And, more importantly, is a university the only way they could pick up that knowledge?

The Facebook School of Business

The recent announcement by the London School of Business and Finance, a business school, that it’s placing its entire MBA program materials on its Facebook app suggests not. Entrepreneurs who want to know about corporate finance or portfolio theory don’t have to worry about coughing up the £11,500 for British students or  £14,500 for overseas students the British college charges. They can just like the Facebook app and start reading. By the time they’re done, they’ll have learned as much as one of the school’s new graduates but there’s a good chance that they’ll have done it faster and they’ll certainly have much more money in their pockets — a pretty good first business decision. They can join the discussions, asking questions about their education in a way that real students might have found inhibitive during a lecture. And by looking for the Facebook pages of the schools’ professors, they could even ask questions about the course material directly — and some of those teachers might not even mind answering them.

If education is all they’re looking for then the publication of an entire course on Facebook’s platform has made college learning — with all it implies about homework, lectures and finals — redundant.

But of course, anyone who does use the app to become a business expert won’t actually have the qualifications enrollment would bring. They won’t be able to put “MBA” after their name, and if they want to hang a certificate on their wall, they’ll have to answer one of the many spam messages offering fake degrees that land in their inboxes every day. The London School of Business and Finance doesn’t really regard the Facebook publication of its courses as an alternative to enrollment (which would be a bad business decision) but as a chance for students to try before they buy (which might just be some smart marketing.)

For an entrepreneur though, those things don’t matter. They’re more interested in what they’re going to do for themselves than in what an employer impressed by qualifications is going to do for them. They want the knowledge. Other students can have the certificate.

The Facebook Frat Party

But those students won’t just get a certificate either. At any university, the social life is almost as important as the curriculum. At some colleges, and for many students, it’s even more important. Part of that is just the hi-jinx of youth but some of that keg partying, ball throwing and general merrymaking does have a valuable side-effect: it creates the relationships and the networks that can lead to jobs and opportunities in the future. That Facebook started at an Ivy League university wasn’t coincidental. Students who study at places like Harvard know that even if their roommates don’t become billionaires with movies made about their lives, they are likely to go on and achieve high level positions in large corporations. It’s worth knowing the people almost as much as it’s worth knowing the information the teachers are offering.

Facebook though also makes that kind of on-campus networking unnecessary. While LinkedIn might the place to keep in touch with former colleagues in case you ever need to find some new ones, Facebook allows friends and former classmates to maintain the kind of peripatetic contact that feels more natural. You don’t have to be in touch every day to post a comment on a status update posted by someone you haven’t seen high school graduation.

No less importantly, the open nature of the comments also makes it simple to interact with the friends of those friends. While being at Harvard with someone is always going to be valuable, being able to meet your friend’s Harvard roommate and roast your mutual acquaintance together delivers the kind of shared experience on which real relationships are based. On Facebook, it’s a short step from knowing that your friend was at college with someone who’s now a venture capitalist to sharing a joke with that venture capitalist at your friend’s expense. It’s an even shorter step from there to friending, chatting and pitching them.

Facebook isn’t likely to replace a four-year degree. Heading off to college is as much a rite of passage as it is a learning experience, and while one business school is giving away the farm on its app, other colleges, including Harvard itself, use Facebook primarily as a promotional tool, a hub from which potential applicants can run off and find more information about the university. They’re not expecting students to regard a few hours on Facebook each day as the equivalent of a four-year Ivy League degree.

But if Facebook can give self-employed types professional knowledge, and if it can deliver access to alumni networks without the painful reunions, what’s left for the colleges to offer  them apart from a piece of paper, and the chance that they might have a roommate with a billion-dollar idea to steal?

It’s been said that each person is separated from every other person by only six degrees (or five introductions). This is a theory that Microsoft has essentially shown to be true – at least amongst online users – by studying the relationships of 180 million people around the world, through 30 billion electronic messages. This concept is referred to as Six Degrees of Separation (which has a Hollywood variation known as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon).

We Are All Connected

What this shows is that humans are in fact social creatures and far more connected than we might sometimes realize. This is valuable for entrepreneurs because it suggests that it’s relatively easily to build a network of colleagues, clients and customers.

In the past, network building has been done in person, followed by telegrams and postal mail, then phone/ pager/ voice mail, then email and now through a variety of online “social media” options.

These electronic options are all variations of “word of mouth” – an ancient form of communication. Word of mouth has often been said to be one of the fastest means of communication in the world, and technology has made it more so. It can also be immensely valuable when it comes to entrepreneuring and business in general. Online social media is simply the newest way to network.

What is Social Media?

When it comes to the online world, we might even be much closer to each other than six degrees – possibly just three degrees apart. Technology does make it easy to connect with new people. Social media makes it even easier to connect, since that’s the whole purpose – making new online friends.

What is social media? It’s a general term for a number of different online tools that allow people to promote themselves or web content, or connect with other people. There are a number of different types of social media. Here are a few types:

1. Social voting + bookmarking websites. These are used to promote online articles and other content.
2. Social networks. Some examples are LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace, which each offer multiple ways to network.
3. Microblogging. While not strictly a social media tool, at the least with Twitter, it has become a way of building a network of friends and “followers,” building personal and brand recognition, and general promotion. Other similar tools include Plurk and Hictu.

Why Use Social Media?

While social media use seems to be growing (judging even just by the number of people joining Twitter, and the number of clones popping up), it’s obvious that many people who work regularly online are still wondering if social media is something they want to get involved in. Or more to the point, is it worth the time?

In short, the answer is “yes.” Yes, if you want to build working relationships online. Depending on the type of service you use, social media gives you a number of benefits that are valuable for entrepreneurs (and all kinds of other web workers):

1. Helps you find like minds and to network. If you’re shy by nature, social media makes it much easier to network.
2. Opportunity to share information, or to find it.
3. Quick-polling outlet. Have a question and want some opinions? Twitter can be an ideal way to get some feedback. However, polling is more effective if you have a large following. (My own experience is that people on Plurk and Facebook are far more responsive.)
4. Hiring and job-seeking channel. Share details of working that you’re offering, or watch for opportunities from your network.
5. Find a life partner. Yes, this can and does happen. When you’re so busy running your business that you don’t have much time to go out and meet new people in real life, it’s often far easier to connect online. If something develops, you can take it from there the normal way.

If you’re a creative entrepreneur (i.e., such as a musician, actor, artist, writer/ novelist), you can utilize social media. Here is an indepth article about how you can use Twitter, for building your entrepreneurial profile. Also check out Geekpreneur’s ebook for promoting yourself with Twitter.

Note that if you use more than one social media tool, explore the options for integrating them. For example, you can tweet a message on Twitter, then use a third-party service to have that message update on your Facebook Wall, your blog, and elsewhere. This is ideal if you have different people in different social networks but want to communicate to all of them.

Integrating Social Media Into Your Work Schedule

One of the common complaints about having to use social media is that it can take up a significant part of your day. That is, if you let it. Everyone has their own threshhold for how many people they can “follow” without feeling overwhelmed by the digital noise that results. There are some people who follow thousands of other people and manage just fine. A few use online tools to filter out just what they want.

The fact is, there’s far more value in social media tools when you follow more people. If you’re concerned about how doing so will affect your schedule, read Chris Garrett’s post on social media network effects.

I have a few simple rules, which vary depending on the social network:

1. Choose a select few social media sites. There’s not enough time in the day for regularly using more than a few sites. While I might have accounts on over a dozen, I only use a few – each for its own purpose, and depending on what my network is using.
2. Try to have a fixed schedule. I check certain services more often than others, simply because of where my currently active network is. I’ve gone from Twitter to Plurk to Twitter to Facebook.
3. Keep building. My network is always growing, though it’s faster on some services than others. On Facebook, I generally only add people I have somehow interacted with in the past, or have been introduced to, or recommended to. On Twitter and Plurk, I follow strangers more readily because the infrastructure allows it.
4. Ask for referrals. If you don’t know someone but someone else you know does, ask the latter for a referral. It’s done offline, so why not online?
5. Add back. If you add me to your network and you are not a spammer, you’ll be added back. (However, if you’re on Twitter, Plurk or some other microblogging site and have no messages posted, I might wait a bit before adding you.) My networks are not enormous but they are big enough on some services that I cannot always “add” back right away. I usually spend a few minutes at the end of each week to do “reciprocal” adds (i.e., add back).

Social Media Mistakes to Avoid

There are number of ways that can social media can be used incorrectly. Interactive Insight Group compiled a list of links to articles that discuss serious social media mistakes.

Social media might help you to promote yourself, but just remember that the benefits come from sharing. The fact that reciprocal behavior is necessary is easy to forget, but should not be forgotten.

So you’re planning to do business either on the Internet or to use it as an important part of your operations. (Or you’ve already started but you’re trying to figure it all out.) The prospect of building up your brand online and promoting it sounds intimidating. There’s also the question of market research, surveys, etc. It’d be nice to get an idea of what your potential customers might want from you. You want their input, preferably on an ongoing basis.

Now imagine some of your customers acting like business partners, giving you feedback in return for some sort of incentive – be it tangible or intangible. If they’re online influencers, they might even promote you.

That is some of what “crowdsourcing” gives you.

What is Crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing Origins

Crowdsourcing isn’t a new concept, but the way it’s now being applied online is relatively new. The essence of crowdsourcing started off in the Open Source movement, where people shared their skills to develop free software. Another facet involves voluntary distributed computing over a network.

For example, a number of scientific applications use the connectivity of the Internet to harness the computers of volunteers. Volunteers give up processing cycles on their computers at times of day that they can specify. The hub application communicates with a desktop application on each computer, each of which get assigned small bites of processing duties. The hub collects

One example is SETI@home, which uses volunteers’ computers over the Internet to mass process data collected by radio telescopes in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Crowdsourcing Now

With crowdsourcing, the effort of problem solving is spread out amongst people, not necessarily just computers. It’s a sort of democratization of ideas, feedback, creativity, content, problem-solving and more.

The Crowdsourcing blog offers two succinct definitions:

The White Paper Version:

Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.

The Soundbyte Version:

The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software.

In essence, people interact with a “hub” (person or web application). They might offer opinions, votes, answers, or even share computing resources. Since we’re talking about the Internet as the medium, the crowds are typically global. The definition of crowdsourcing is loose enough that there are a great many actual and potential applications.

Types of Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing can be applied in countless ways, depending on the application, the hardware/ gadgets, and the network. Beyond Open Source software and distributed computing, there many uses yet to be discovered. The monetization models are just beginning.

For example, a few clever people have tweaked the crowdsourced debugging model to offer a ready-to-go base of beta testers for software houses. Two examples of this type of service are uTest and TopCoder. They have monetized crowdsourced application debugging by charging software houses for the service and incentivized by paying debuggers. (TopCoder also crowdsources software developers.)

What’s Next?

So far, crowdsourcing has been applied to distributed computing, software debugging and coding (Open Source software development). Imagine being able to apply the concept of Kaizen (continuous improvement) to your software development cycle by harnessing users all over the world to help you test and debug?

This concept can be carried forward to applications related to space exploration, environmental modeling and protection, political and social surveying and much more. If distributed computing is brought back into the mix, especially on the mobile platform, crowdsourcing uses are endless.

Trends: The Mobile Internet

The true undiscovered frontier of crowdsourcing will likely be the mobile platform. The potential is enormous, especially given how many people in the world have mobile phones and other PCDs (Personal Communication Devices). Imagine PCDs more powerful than the already popular Apple iPhone. Then imagine them with environmental sensor chips that can measure humidity, environmental temperature, or other factors. RFiD or other short-range communication chips would then transfer data to localized hubs for mass data aggregation over the Internet. (This is a small facet of the coming “Internet of things,” which will likely be facilitated by the even faster Internet to come.)

To wit, one mobile application that has been put forth theoretically is local weather forecasting via hundreds of mobile phones that are part of a crowdsourced pool. These phones would have sensor chips that measure one or more environmental factors and transmit the data to the nearest hub. This data collection only takes place when a request is made to the system, and only to phones voluntarily placed in a crowdsourced pool.

So the weather in a given city could be the average
of the temperature detected by several dozen or several hundred phones around the city. But the weather report query itself might come from a person or application in another city, possibly via a digital mapping app such as Google Maps.

This type of application is part of a new field that can positively impact businesses who are crowdsourcing-aware and work it into their operations strategy.

Facebook’s taken flak for Beacon. It’s users aren’t worth much to advertisers. But at least it has apps — those neat little programs that extend the power of social networking, make messaging pals so much more fun and that are the real attraction of a service that positions itself as a MySpace for grown-ups.

And yet just as MySpace announces its own opening to outside applications, Facebook has declared that it plans to punish programs that receive poor responses by restricting the number of notifications they can send.

Perhaps that’s not too surprising. While a few apps, such as Groups and the FunWall are useful, many are so desperately poor they look like they were produced for users too juvenile to sign up for MySpace without their parents’ permission.

For a site built on the power of apps, they’re a worrying sign that all might not be right in Zuckerberg’s world. Here are some of the Facebook apps that should find themselves under the site’s new hammer:

Zombies

Yes, we know this one’s popular but what does that say about Facebook? That it’s networking power consists of people biting each other rather than recommending each other for jobs? Or that its members are the sort of horror fans who enjoy seeing teenage splatter movies in which the girl always screams, the geek comes good and the cynical friend gets eaten?

Why can’t we just talk to each other?

(fluff) Friends

Another strangely popular application that gives tamoguchis a whole new lease of life… long after we’d hoped they were dead, buried and forgotten.

But this is even worse. Not only are we being offered a virtual pet friend on a site that’s supposed to help us make real pals, it’s even suggested that we spend real money on them:

Check out the (fluff)Shop for things to buy your pet–delicious treats or a cozy habitat. Each individual (fluff)Friend has a unique taste. When you raise your pet to be big and strong, try entering it into (fluff)Races!

You can also give (fluff)Gifts to your friends, and even adopt Miniature (fluff)Friends to keep your pet company.

It makes you wonder how many fluff friends have more friends than their owners.

Glitter Text

No wonder MySpace were so enamored with apps. It wasn’t the easier networking they liked or the extra functionality. It was the realization that their members too could make their profiles look like a teenage girl’s diary.

Just what you need to advertise your company’s Facebook presence.

What’s your pimp name?

Of course, if you do want to add some glitter to your business idea, you may as well go the whole hog and create a pimp name for it too.

What could be more attractive to VCs checking your background than knowing that you like to be called “Big Daddy”?

What kind of sandal are you?

Facebook seems to be filled with apps asking people what kind of something they are. This app lets you show what kind of underwear you are, while others ask what kind lingerie you’d be or which kind of TV character. They’re all about as shallow as a puddle in the Sahara and they all suggest that the depths of the relationships formed on Facebook aren’t even skin-deep.

But what kind of sandal are you?

How many kinds of sandals are there — and who knows the difference between them?

Apparently, not many. Only nineteen people ever use this app each day, setting itself up for a big cut in its notifications.

Hot lists

Describing yourself as a kind of shoe might be embarrassing enough but Hot Lists lets you describe yourself as a corporate brand.

Yes, we like the idea of using Facebook as business tool to reach people, but we’re not too keen on the idea of turning the people on Facebook into businesses. There is more to Internet users than what they buy.

Isn’t there?

Utadaholics

One of the great things about the Internet is its ability to reach the long tail. Interests that rarely get a look in on mainstream media can build a fan center with dedicated contributors.

Unless you’re a Utada Hikaru fan on Facebook. Despite being one HMV’s “Top 30 Best Japanese Singers of All Time,” the Facebook app dedicated to “Hikki” has a grand total of two daily users.

Attending Utadaholics Anonymous could be a pretty lonely affair…

What do you think are the worst apps on Facebook?

[tags] facebook apps [/tags]

What is it about Facebook that brings out the crazy in people? If they’re not leaving strange videos on Fun Walls, adding apps that would barely thrill a three-year old or making friends with people they’ll never meet and never want to meet just to make sure they don’t look like the schoolyard nerd no one loved, they’re creating and joining groups with the weirdest names.

Here are seven of the strangest groups we found on Facebook:

Physics Doesn’t Exist, It’s All Gnomes

Photography: B_Tal
This group is worth seeing just to read the (long) intro page. According to the group’s 23,347 members

“all the main physics principles can be explained away by the existence of tiny gnomes.”

So heat is gnomes rubbing each other; kettles boil when gnomes fart in the water; and computers are tiny gnomes who sit at desks inside your machine. But you knew that last one didn’t you?

Join the gnome fun here.

Kids Who Hid in Dep’t Store Clothing Racks while their Mom Was Shopping

Clothes… quick, hide!

The fact that with 157,114 members this is the one of the most popular groups on Facebook tells us two things: that hiding in clothes racks is a popular activity for children; and that people on Facebook will join anything.

It also tells us that spammers will strike anywhere too. The admin had to shut down the group’s Wall because she got fed up deleting links to porn sites and because “the t-shirts being posted really had nothing to do with the group.”

She’s right, of course. T-shirts make rotten hiding places. Hide yourself here.

I Yell At Inanimate Objects

Sometimes, they yell back. Photography: what what

With just 12,274 members, you can’t help but feel this group hasn’t reached its potential. Just about every Windows user must have experienced that Nirvana moment that comes from yelling at the pop-up informing them that the program “has encountered a serious problem” and inviting them to become an unpaid member of Microsoft’s QA team.

Discussion topics in this group include the most satisfying noise to make when yelling and the strangest object members have yelled at (entries include a matador statue and cheese.)

Give this group a shout here.

If You Don’t Start Walking Faster, I Am Going To Hit You With My Backpack
Facebook started as a site for college students… and sometimes it looks like it stayed that way. This group, with just over 3,600 members, lets students who get stuck behind slow walkers rant against snail-like classmates, moving texters and other people who get in their way. It also lets them threaten slowpokes with a backpack beating.

Fortunately, the site does have advice that people can use to speed up their stroll. These include staying on the side of the sidewalk, learning to talk and walk at the same time and not blinding people with umbrellas as they pass. Or, as the organizers put it:

“The next time that happens, I swear to God I’ll put on my ski mask, hit you with my backpack, and put that umbrella where no umbrella should rightfully go.”

People who aren’t students though can skip the backpack and the brollies and head straight to the violence by joining I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head. With 701,887 members, you’ll have much more company.

You can join this group here but be quick.

Shoe Phone Appreciation Society
Who needs an iPhone when your shoe can do just as much and doesn’t make you break your contract with your current service provider? Okay, it can’t do just as much, but unlike the Jesus phone, the shoe phone does keep your foot warm, doesn’t need charging and it comes with a spare. Reception isn’t great but according to the group’s blurb, it looks just good enough to prevent the user having to talk to people they meet in the street:

“grab your shoephone and you can pretend to be deep in conversation, thus avoiding the pleasant small talk of someone you can’t stand!”

Give this group a call here.

I Think Patterns On Scantrons Are Suspicious
A group that’s really for teaching assistants and the students who feed them. It has a few neat pics of scantron patterns that turned up after tests (although it could certainly do with more), including one odd example of someone who only chose C… and scored 0/100. It was true/false test. It takes real talent to draw a complete blank with 50/50 answers.

Interestingly, patterns on scantrons might actually be a good thing. One discussion post recounted this frightening story:

“i had a teacher that would actually make pictures out of the answers, so you could always see if you had it correct by making sure that it looked like a picture, i dont think she realized that we all knew this hahaha”

Just who’s training these teachers?

Check out the exam patterns here.

We Look So Sexy In Our Labcoats, We Need Safety Goggles… For Protection.

So sexy…

Part of the appeal of Facebook is the opportunity for like-minded people to find each other… and leave little messages. It’s unlikely that people who think lab coats are sexy would meet any other way — especially people who record the growth of the group by declaring when it’s reached the Z number of Fermium. And yet 7,852 agree that lab coats are as stylish as capes and make their wearers look like academics. Right down to the ink stain on the pocket.

People who think it’s the science not the white coat that gets the heart racing can join any number of other groups from We’re scientists AND we’re sexy to SeXy BiOmEdIcAl ScIeNtIsTs.

But if you want to join this one, pull on your lab outfit and click here.

[tags] weird facebook groups, facebook groups [/tags]