APSEC%202008:%20Online%20Communities%20and%20Your%20University%20Alumni%20Association

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APSEC 2008 Online Communities and Your
University Alumni Association
Albert Kalim, WebmasterUniversity of Kentucky
Alumni Associationhttp//www.ukalumni.net
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Introduction

• With so many online communities available on the
  Internet, it is not easy to choose one or two
  that you can use effectively for your university
  alumni association. We will discuss in detail
  the popular and major social/professional
  communities your association can benefit from the
  most based on my experience. We will also
  assist you with deciding whether and how to
  launch a new community for your university alumni
  association.

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Major Online Communities

• gtgt Windows Live Spaces (MSN Spaces) (260 million
  users)gtgt Yahoo! 360 degrees (250 million)gtgt
  MySpace (240 million)gtgt Facebook (230
  million)gtgt YouTube (200 million)gtgt Friendster
  (140 million)gtgt hi5 (130 million)gtgt Orkut
  (128 million)gtgt Habbo (126 million)gtgt
  Classmates.com (110 million)gtgt Tagged.com (70
  million)gtgt Reunion.com (64 million)gtgt LinkedIn
  (50 million)gtgt Plaxo (36 million)gtgt
  LiveJournal (32 million)gtgt Flixster, Netlog,
  etc.

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My Social/Professional Communities

• Facebook (current college generation)LinkedIn
  (business professional)YouTube (future
  technology)

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Why not WLS or Yahoo! 360?

• gtgt Windows Live and Yahoo are mostly known for
  their e-mail services, not online communities.
• gtgt They only offer basic online community
  features such as sharing pictures, sharing files
  and adding blog entries.
• gtgt Their designs are less attractive than other
  more social/professional communities such as
  MySpace or Friendster.
• gtgt Statistics WLS received only approximately 27
  million unique visitors per month and Yahoo! 360,
  which is still in beta testing, received about 4
  million unique visitors per month.

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Why not WLS or Yahoo! 360?
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Why Facebook?

• 1. Popularity In April 2008 Facebook officially
  caught up to MySpace in terms of unique monthly
  worldwide visitors, according to data released by
  comScore. Both services are attracting around 115
  million people to their respective sites each
  month. comScore

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Why Facebook?

• 2. Membership 85 of college students use
  Facebook A year after Facebook was launched, it
  was supporting 882 colleges there were about
  2,000 in the U.S. including community colleges at
  the time. The penetration rate was staggering
  3.85 million students in supported colleges had a
  profile up on Facebook. 60 logged in daily. 85
  logged in once a week, and 93 logged in at least
  once a month. TechCrunch.com
• And the numbers are getting higher, even as
  we speak.

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Why Facebook?

• 3. Good E-mail Addresses There are more alums
  and students/future alums who are using good
  e-mail addresses (university e-mail addresses or
  personal e-mail addresses) for Facebook than
  those who are using e-mail addresses for spam.
• February 4, 2004 Facebook was launched,
• requiring a corporate/high school/university
  e-mail
• address to gain access to the site. Fall
  2006 Facebook opened for the world.

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Why Facebook?

• 4. Positive Applications There will be more open
  applications and software products tailored to
  connect Facebook with alumni associations
  databases, universities record system,
  etc.Example Harris Facebook Community
  Connections

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Why Facebook?

• 5. Increased Web Traffic to Your Alumni
  Association Website

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Why Facebook?

• 6. Easy promotion
• gtgt Facebook Profile Badge
• (Photo Badge, Signature Badge, Blog Badge)
• gtgt Invite others easily through Facebook Contact
  Importers (LinkedIn, Microsoft Outlook 2000 and
  above, Microsoft Outlook Express, Mozilla
  Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Windows Address Book,
  Palm Desktop, Palm Desktop Vcard, Entourage, Mac
  OS X Address Book, AIM Buddy List, Windows Live
  Contacts), Search for People, Find Former High
  School Classmates, College Classmates based on
  institutions, Classmates based on class years,
  etc.)

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Why Facebook?

• 7. Privacy and Safety
• gtgt Set Profile Availability Control who can see
  your profile and personal information, control
  who can search for you and how you can be
  contacted, control what stories about you get
  published to your profile and to your friends
  News Feeds, control what information is available
  to applications you use on Facebook.
• gtgt Blocking Ability If you block someone, they
  will not be able to find you in a Facebook
  search, see your profile, or interact with you
  through Facebook channels (such as Wall posts,
  etc.). Any Facebook ties you currently have with
  a person you block will be broken (for example,
  friendship connections, Relationship Status,
  etc.).

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Why Facebook?

• 8. Future Technology
• gtgt New Facebook Page new.facebook.com (ability
  to toggle back and forth)
• gtgt Facebook Mobile Send messages to your phone,
  receive notifications for friend requests,
  messages, wall posts, and status updates from
  your friends Update your status, search for
  phone numbers, upload photos, upload videos from
  phone.
• gtgt Mobile Web Optimized web experience through
  m.facebook.com

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Why Facebook?
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Demo My Facebook
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LinkedIn

• gtgt Worlds largest professional network.
• gtgt Growing fast
• Over 25 million professionalsuse LinkedInto
  exchangeinformation,ideas andopportunities

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LinkedIn

• gtgt IBM Collaboration solutions featuring Web 2.0
  capabilities tagging, blogging, added security,
  etc.
• gtgt Build network through Web email contacts
  (Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc.),
  Upload Contacts (Outlook, ACT!, Lotus, Palm,
  Apple), Browser Toolbar (Firefox, IE, etc.),
  Colleagues Search (institution, work field,
  etc.), Classmates Search.
• gtgt RSS Feeds to keep up with fresh information in
  an automated manner.

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LinkedIn

• gtgt LinkedIn People name search, reference
  search, advance search
• gtgt LinkedIn Jobs hiring information, post a job,
  manage jobs, job credits,
• gtgt LinkedIn Answers ask a question on anything,
  answer questions, collaboration.
• gtgt LinkedIn Companies company profile, company
  search, networking.

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LinkedIn

• gtgt LinkedIn Group for your alumni association

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Demo My LinkedIn
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YouTube

• gtgt The future of internet will be more audio
  visual than
• static text.
• gtgt Incredibly popular.
• gtgt Easy for users to contribute videos.
• gtgt A central location to find video clips with
  methods of
• finding them (browsing, searching,
  keywords, etc.)
• gtgt Let you embed the Flash movies into blogs so
  that
• they could be easily shared with a single
  click.
• gtgt Allow people to watch movies without going
• through a cumbersome registration process.

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YouTube

• gtgt Uploading videos limited to ten minutes in
  length and
• a file size of 1 GB.
• gtgt Multiple videos uploading capability.
• gtgt File conversions to allow all platforms to
  view video
• with the highest quality.
• gtgt Supports 3GP to upload videos directly from
• a cell phone.
• gtgt Social networking through comments,
  rating/ranking (most viewed, top rated, most
  discussed, top favorites, rising videos, recently
  featured and most responded), sharing videos
  (Facebook, MySpace, etc.), statistics and data to
  compare with.

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Demo My YouTube
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Encouragement

• 1. It's never too late to create your alumni
  association presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, or
  YouTube.
• 2. Simplicity, clarity, and being informative
  are key to success.
• 3. Collaborate with other groups or admins to
  create even bigger presence.

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Encouragement Demographic Monitor

• 18 years or older, in the United States,
  graduated from your university.
• Auburn University gtgt In College 23,860
  profilesgtgt Alumni 19,620 profiles
• Louisiana State Universitygtgt In College
  27,120gtgt Alumni 26,140

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Encouragement Demographic Monitor

• Mississippi State University gtgt In
  College 12,940 profilesgtgt Alumni 11,740
  profiles
• University of Alabamagtgt In College
  24,800gtgt Alumni 15,580
• University of Arkansasgtgt In College
  16,700 gtgt Alumni 8,860

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Encouragement Demographic Monitor

• University of Georgia gtgt In College 27,560
  profilesgtgt Alumni 28,140 profiles
• University of Floridagtgt In College
  36,680gtgt Alumni 36,000
• University of Kentuckygtgt In College
  21,440gtgt Alumni 14,380

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Encouragement Demographic Monitor

• University of Mississippi gtgt In College
  14,500 profilesgtgt Alumni 13,120 profiles
• University of South Carolinagtgt In College
  24,380gtgt Alumni 14,200

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Encouragement Demographic Monitor

• University of Tennessee gtgt In College
  25,160 profilesgtgt Alumni 21,860 profiles
• Vanderbilt Universitygtgt In College
  6,800gtgt Alumni 9,700