Facebook: What Once Was the Exclusive Private Social Media Group
In 2004, I was a senior in college at the University of Miami. The school ranking was in the US Weekly top 30, out Football team was ranked in the top 10, and we were the 11th school to be added to the Facebook data base. I remember receiving an email from a classmate inviting me to join the Facebook. But I never heard of the Facebook so, I deleted it and kept with my Myspace page. A week later my sorority was asking everyone, “What do you like better: the Facebook or Myspace?” There goes that word Facebook again. It peeked my interest. You had to have an invite to join this private social media platform/college student group. When I received another invite to join, I accepted.
It felt like a social club for cool college kids. There were less than a dozen schools invited. You could search any school by sorority of fraternity. College kids were spending hours just searching through other college students. In fact, when I landed my first career gig (as a meteorologist at KCBD in Lubbock, TX), I went to the Facebook in search of friends. By December 2004 Facebook had 1 million users and, Texas Tech (which is in Lubbock, TX) was added to the elite Facebook college grouping. I messaged other female students asking them about what parts of town would they recommend living in, places to hang out, and if they liked living there. I was making friends with this private group, in other towns, that had the same interest as me. We planned to eventually meet when I moved out there. It was amazing; I already had friends in a city I was preparing to move to, thanks to the internet group Facebook, I was not alone as I embarked adulthood.
In 2005 many recent grads were embracing their entrance to the workforce, while missing their college life. Facebook was there again to fill the void. You could see what your friends were posting so one could live vicariously through the college fun. Entering the workforce, you encounter many adults that are already out of college. They missed out on the exclusive invite to join Facebook and were thus forced to communicate through MySpace. Here was the first sign that maybe the private group, should turn public. In Septemeber 2006, Facebook did just that. Everyone was allowed to join.
The exclusivity of it vanished, but the ability to meet so many people grew exponentially. From December 2006 to December 2007, Facebok gained 46 million users. Facebook was evolving. The mass public group was getting too big to post personal information ( this is a sentiment for today as well interacting in public forums). The group turned into a whole platform, that was no longer exciting. Gone was the red velvet rope making one feel special. Now we were just part of a heard (later reveled for data mining). Maybe a secret group of college students at select universities are on Facebook right now, bringing the whole idea back to its roots. And maybe The “U” will have a winning football record once again!
