As Karine Joly pointed out a few days ago, U.S. News & World Report — already the monster of the college ranking games — has unleashed a new Facebook application on the world, Gradzilla.
The magazine says this new app is designed to help students find grad schools by accessing data from the magazine’s rankings for graduate programs. U.S. News blogger Alison Go probably pegs it to Facebook culture with her post/announcement: “Keep track of schools, and—in that quintessential gen Y narcissistic way—tell all your friends about it. The polls are probably the most fun; designed for you to ask friends which school you should attend. But the polling questions aren’t limited to that (or anything, really). The possibilities are endless—and not necessarily so innocent.”
Will Gradzilla be a killer app for undergrads looking to further their education? Time will tell. But so far, according to the Gradzilla Facebook fan page, the tool isn’t necessarily tearing up Tokyo (30 users and 23 fans as of this morning). Perhaps this social media experiment will meet the same fate as so many other Facebook apps. To misquote Blue Oyster Cult, “History shows again and again how fickle social networkers point up the folly of apps.”
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Now playing: Blue Oyster Cult – Godzilla
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Andrew Careaga 