About two weeks ago, I was involved in launching a new social media website for UMBC. This is an aggregator site – it doesn’t require students to participate in the site directly in order for it to obtain social media content. When students sign up for the site, they link it to their existing feeds in YouTube, Flikr, Twitter, LastFM and blog posts.
Like all new social media platforms, the launch is something of a social experiment. We build it and we help seed it. But we don’t know exactly what is going to happen once it launches and it gets turned over to the wider college community. Needless to say everyone involved with the project watches the site pretty obsessively these days.
Though many of the channels that we included in the site are active, we’re all a little tickled that the coolest and most vibrant channel on the site is definitely the Twitter stream. If you’re one of those people who doesn’t get Twitter or thinks it’s boring, take a minute to check out this stream of comments. It’s a lot of fun. We even got an endorsement from one of the tweeters:
. . . actually, to all of my UMBC Twitter friends, why aren’t you ALL on be.UMBC.edu. It’s fucking sweet- go sign up!
So I’m thinking pronouncements about the unpopularity of Twitter among college students may be a bit premature – at least for this group of engaged students at UMBC.
come try it at Pomona! (I have zero confidence that it would work here)
Interesting. I wonder. Don’t you think given all the challenges of the contemporary world a four-year vita contemplativa is a bit over rated?
Yes and great creation. This is the kind of thing worth moving towards to enable and educational community for students. Now to get it as integrated with the curriculum as possible to enable student involvement.