technology – Page 67 – Andrew Careaga

Now that anyone with a network connection can get into Facebook, will it lose its cachet and become the next MySpace? Colleges and universities wanting to maintain a close-knit social network may want to look beyond Facebook and take a do-it-yourself approach. That’s what Elon University has done with its Elon Town Square.

Karine Joly describes Elon’s approach in a recent post. She interviews Dan Anderson, Elon’s assistant VP and director of university relations, who explains that the schools wanted to especially enhance “alumni and parent connections with Elon.”

I’m not sure that approach would work for everyone — it would take a strong working relationship with the IT department, for one thing — but it’s nice to see it can work in some cases. Just goes to prove that one size doesn’t fit all.

Update, June 13, 2007: After playing around with the site a bit more, I discovered that you can add more than three social networking sites into your profile.

In last week’s Friday Five I pointed to a TechCrunch review of MyLifeBrand, a social networking utility (and yet another social network, in and of itself) that lets users aggregate social networking memberships and navigate between them from a single place. I was intrigued, so I applied for membership in MyLifeBrand Alpha and to my surprise was immediately accepted.

So far, all I’ve done with the site is create the space where I can access my top ~~three~~ four social networks (Facebook, MyRagan, ~~and~~ LinkedIn and MySpace). This could be a good solution for anyone managing multiple social networks. The Alpha version only allows you to place ~~up to three~~ several social networks on a page, and you have to go to the “snapshot” view to input and view them.