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I have been asked about using Facebook a few times in the last couple of days so I thought I would post my advice/thoughts here for future reference.

I don't pretend to be an expert on such things (I leave THAT to the likes of danah boyd) but I can offer the following answers when it comes to Facebook:

Is Facebook a good marketing tool?

I don't think Facebook is a strong marketing tool, at this stage. I think though that there is no harm in having a presence on Facebook. In some cases I would recommend that a presence is set up, if simply to circumvent other more 'unofficial' representations of your organisation.

How do we do this?

The easiest and most transparent way is to create a Page for your Organisation. It doesn't cost anything and takes very little time to set up. I say transparent because Pages are essentially large, informal ads. By using them you are not in danger of over-stepping the mark of potential and current students' privacy or looking rather uncool. If you're not sure about how Facebook works, its etiquette etc, the easiest way to use it is through Pages. Once you have set up your page, Facebook users can become 'fans' of your organisation.

How do Pages / Facebook work?

If you haven't used Facebook before, the key elements to understanding it are:

Individuals become members of Facebook by registering and setting up a profile. Usually members use their real names and a surprisingly large proportion use an actual photograph of themselves. They build up their profiles by putting in photos, videos etc. They then become 'friends' with other people on Facebook and can communicate with them by writing messages on their wall (a message board) or by sending them private messages, among other ways.

Members can also form or join groups which have their own page on which people can leave messages etc. Some organisations have used groups as a way in which to communicate with prospective and current students. The idea of the Page formalises the relationship of an organisation beyond a group. Having said that, there is no way of stopping anyone setting up a page for any particular organisation.

Should we do it?

As I said earlier, I think one good reason to do it is to stop others from doing it. Like all online social networks, you will lose some control over your 'message' and 'brand' in that fans can write on the wall of the page. You can remove the wall and the discussion area but in doing so you are removing one of the oft-used features of Facebook and may then lose some of the benefits of using it. Essentially Facebook is a social network that enables communication from many angles. If you remove one of these angles it will be noticed.

So how do we control it?

Essentially you can't. You have to balance comment with brand-control. Basically you have to learn to let go. This applies not only to Facebook but to Flickr, YouTube and other content sharing and social networking sites. You can remove the ability for users to provide feedback but you also need to weigh up the response to such a move.

A watchful eye is required with all uses of social networking and content sharing sites. This is one area that people underestimate: the time it takes to keep abreast of what is happening across their presences on these sites. (This is where email notifications and RSS feeds come in handy but that's a topic for another post).

Having said that, Facebook is probably one area that is easier to control. The fact that there is less anonymity on Facebook seems to make people a little more cautious than on general blogs and YouTube, for example. It is much more closed space than other social networking sites. The current etiquette may alter over time, especially now that Facebook has been opened to all, not just Uni/College students.

There is also the whole area of Facebook Applications but I will leave that to another day. This is just a brief beginner's guide.

If you have more than a passing interest in social network sites you may want to check out the latest issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. It includes work by danah boyd.

As you may know by now, Facebook is offering 'Pages' as a way for business and other organisations to establish a presence on Facebook.

After some discussion we have set up a page for the University of Sydney. While there are no expectations of big things it seemed to us that it was so easy to set up a page that we would be crazy not to do it.

We'd spoken at length about using Facebook and I always came back to the same hesitation: it was diffcult to create a presence without looking naff. Without going into too much detail, the Pages option allows us to create a presence without being too heavy-handed or compromising the privacy of our student ambassadors. Another big reason we wanted to do it was to maintain some brand control. Obviously a lack of brand control is just something you have to deal with when it comes to online social networks but there are some things you can do to at least create an 'official' presence. As far as we could see, there was nothing stopping ANYONE else setting up the page so we figured we'd get in sharpish and do it before they did.

The Faculty of Economics and Business has also set up a page so I would expect other faculties and departments to follow suit soon.

Wanna be our fan? Search for University of Sydney on Facebook and you'll find us.

Karine has more at collegewebeditor.

We've added another content outlet to our list, we've started posting photos to a general Uni Flickr account. (RSS feed for our photos).

Why? Well, it's a quick and easy way to get photos online and the photos don't have to be print-quality or taken by a pro. The confines of Flickr allow for a more relaxed online environment and of course, it allows for sharing, tagging and commenting. We would like to include photos from other areas of the Uni, not just MSRU, so if you have photos you want to include, let me know.

Our other accounts include YouTube and a del.icio.us account for web dev and design.

You may wish to join the Australian Web Industry Professionals Association or Higher Ed Experts.

That is all.

Ok, so I had a whinge about Twitter a couple of weeks ago but since then I have had time to use it a little more, even if sporadically. I have been thinking that there must be some kind of way in which higher ed people can use this. It's simple and easy and free.

I noticed on the weekend that the BBC is using it to send out news headlines so I signed up to their sports updates. I have long admired the ability of the BBC's web people to integrate new technologies into their online offerings, they usually do it in a very user-friendly manner that actually delivers interesting content. So, I was intrigued.

The BBC uses Twitter to deliver a very slim amount of content in the form of a headline and a link. They use Tiny URL to make their 'Twitters' even shorter (there's a 140 char limit) and not burdened by a long URL that can be hard on a reader's eye. I have Twitter delivered to my IM client so accessing anything that interests me is easy. If you were receiving via SMS you would obviously need web access via your phone to get the full benefit from it.

In terms of delivering short messages there is potential. This morning I read the Shifted Librarian's take on Twitter for libraries. Like me, Jenny's been thinking that there must be some useful application for it, besides a vanity publishing tool. She came up with the distribution of library alerts and one of the big attractions of using Twitter for such messages is that it's free and would require little technical work to make it happen.

"So here's my theory and the reason for this post. I've already thought out loud about one possible way for a library (or consortium of libraries) to use Twitter, but I think an enterprising library that wants to test out a texting service, especially with teens, could create a free Twitter account and publicize it as an alert notification system. In fact, I think a library could create multiple Twitter accounts and offer a variety of alert services this way."

UPDATE: Deep and sincere apologies to The Shifted Librarian. I had used a quote from your blog and not marked it as such. This may have led people to believe they were my own words. I have now corrected this error.

Does anyone use Twitter? (Yes, I know LOTS of people use Twitter, I meant any of you lot). It's been around for a while and as I recently took a break from the web for three months I missed it.

Anyway, I signed up for it but as I don't know anyone else who uses it I haven't actually experienced it properly. I haven't rushed to tell friends and acquaintances to use it because, well, I am doubting the usefulness of it.

If you haven't seen it, the premise of Twitter is to answer the question "What are you doing?" You tell it and it tells all your friends. It does this by posting your answer to your profile and if they have it set up, sending your answers to your friend's IM accounts and/or phones. It's more immediate and micro than a blog post and not quite an IM conversation.

At first I got all hot and bothered over the fact that I had found a new application that did something so immediate and allowed me to communicate so easily and then I went to answer the question and thought, hang on, I don't know if I want people to know what I am doing. And on top of that, what makes me think people would be interested in what I am doing?

As Kathy Sierra pointed out in December last year, Twitter is a sign that we are approaching a point of brain overload. We are already in a state of constant partial attention, our ability to focus is diminishing by the second. Having to think about what you are doing every hour or so and report it is not exactly conducive to focus. And to be honest, I can't think of many people who would like to know what I am doing all the time. And (whisper it) I can't think of anyone who I would like to tell me what they are doing constantly. Sometimes a little mystery is good thing.

One of the problems in web work is that when something useful is developed and it takes off, everyone wants one. Take tagging for example. Tagging has contributed to a shift in web design, in web usage and the way in which people conceive of information patterns. Tag clouds have been popping up everywhere and this is not always a good thing. Like all things to do with the web, there is a time and a place. What works in one context may be a dismal failure in another.

Tim at the LibraryThing blog has taken a good look at the difference in tag use between LibraryThing and Amazon. In short: tags have not been as successful on the latter as they have on the former. Tim makes a few interesting observations, including:

- people like to tag their own stuff but don't feel compelled to tag products people are trying to sell
- LibraryThingers are using the site to organise their own books, most of their tags are descriptive and are used for themselves and socially whereas Amazon users have a tendency to create 'opinion' tags which are are an extension of Amazon's review system.

Something is going on here—something with broad implications for tagging, classification and "Web 2.0" commerce. There are a couple of lessons, but the most important is this: Tagging works well when people tag "their" stuff, but it fails when they're asked to do it to "someone else's" stuff. You can't get your customers to organize your products, unless you give them a very good incentive. We all make our beds, but nobody volunteers to fluff pillows at the local Sheraton.

It's a fantastic post. Go read it.

One of the problems in web work is that when something useful is developed and it takes off, everyone wants one. Take tagging for example. Tagging has contributed to a shift in web design, in web usage and the way in which people conceive of information patterns. Tag clouds have been popping up everywhere and this is not always a good thing. Like all things to do with the web, there is a time and a place. What works in one context may be a dismal failure in another.

Tim at the LibraryThing blog has taken a good look at the difference in tag use between LibraryThing and Amazon. In short: tags have not been as successful on the latter as they have on the former. Tim makes a few interesting observations, including:

- people like to tag their own stuff but don't feel compelled to tag products people are trying to sell
- LibraryThingers are using the site to organise their own books, most of their tags are descriptive and are used for themselves and socially whereas Amazon users have a tendency to create 'opinion' tags which are are an extension of Amazon's review system.

Something is going on here—something with broad implications for tagging, classification and "Web 2.0" commerce. There are a couple of lessons, but the most important is this: Tagging works well when people tag "their" stuff, but it fails when they're asked to do it to "someone else's" stuff. You can't get your customers to organize your products, unless you give them a very good incentive. We all make our beds, but nobody volunteers to fluff pillows at the local Sheraton.

It's a fantastic post. Go read it.

Carnegie Mellon researchers have responded to user's disappointment with MySpace et al's inability to promote meaningful social connections by creating an online friendship network called Mindkin.

In former online versions of social networks, people simply added friends’ names when they wanted, as long as both parties consented. This process allowed for large, sprawling social networks, but many problems surfaced. In particular, many people barely knew anything about most people on their “friends list” besides what sparse details the friends chose to display...

...Mindkin, however, does away with these problems altogether. On Mindkin, people are matched, quite literally, by their thoughts and interests, and users can only network with people who have similar thoughts or find similar things interesting.

Via The Chronicle of Higher Ed.