There’s a new social network on the horizon, and it could be greater than Facebook. Remember back in the day, before your grandma and your fifth cousin four times removed were hitting you up for friend requests, Facebook was all about college students interacting and connecting? A new site is branching off this idea, but with emphasis on college students. It’s college only–no, seriously this time. It’s in the name and everything.
Privacy Worries No More?
CollegeOnly is truly exclusive, requiring a college email address to even get into the site. Josh Weinstein, creator of the site, saw the opportunity for creating a more specialized social network. Josh said he wanted to allow students to steer away from the editing required on sites like Facebook in fear that family or potential employers could see. This site is truly meant for pure socialization. But, just because it’s solely college people able to use the site now doesn’t mean it will always be that way (even though the name is promising, I’m a skeptic at heart). Besides, it’s still an Internet site, meaning one way or another, it’s almost certain other non-college students will at one point or another breach the site. You should be careful of what you post regardless.
We Can ALL Be Friends!
I can see this turning into online wars and awkwardness galore. Once you sign onto the website with your college email, you’re automatically connected with everyone else from your school—that’s right, no friend requesting on this bad boy. Such instant connections might make cyber stalking and bullying that much easier. While you can block members, if there are a ton of people from your school networking on the site, would you really want to go through the effort of going through everyone and figuring out who needs to be blocked? It seems like this site can end up being a little more…social than what Weinstein’s bargained for, but you never know. Maybe someone will bake a cake made of rainbows and smiles and everyone will eat and be happy (“Mean Girls”, anyone?).
All About the College Experience
Though the site seems similar to Facebook, Weinstein has talked about different features like “After Party” and “Missed Connections”, which users can even opt to contribute to anonymously. With new features like text chat and video chats he’s striving to develop, everyone will know which frats have the best parties, which dorm is most desirable, what classes to avoid, and basically anything a college student would want to know. This site will likely become a key source of information for the freshman anxious to become part of the campus scene.
All in all, this site has a solid niche that likely won’t be decreasing in numbers anytime soon. There are a few kinks to be worked out, and users should still be wary of what they’re posting. Just because the site is exclusive, doesn’t mean everything posted will stay circulating in only that exclusive crowd. If used properly, this site can actually be quite helpful, fun and possibly make college students more lasting connections than Facebook can. Though CollegeOnly is still new on the scene and much like a freshman itself, it might just become a hot commodity in the future.
