From a social networking perspective, UGC saw its beginnings on campuses across the United States and into Canada. It isn’t surprising that social networking has been alive and well on our campus for many years and User Generated Content has proven to be very effective in communicating to the masses.
StFX and X-Talk
In it’s most basic and early fourm, UGC began in earnest at StFX with X-Talk, a social discussion forum hosted on the StFX Student Union website. Users could join, make up a name, provide as little or as much information about themselves as they wished, choose a unique aviator and start posting. There weren’t many rules and use of the website skyrocketed. Key to the success of this forum was the posting of the newest discussion threads on the main page of the Union website. It quickly became apparent that you could get information about what was happening on campus by checking the site and the people who posted relished that oppourtunity for attention.
At the hight of it’s popularity, the forum spoke for thousands of students in national media publications and on television across the region when issues surrounding the BurMac hockey game stirred sexist and racist controversy. More recently, as a StFX Professor attended a conference in Iran, the Globe and Mail among others turned to X-Talk for student perspective. Visit X-Talk
A move to Facebook
Over the last eighteen months, facebook.com has taken over the role of information provider to students at StFX with over eighty percent of the student population using an account on a regular basis. With more and more students taking advantage of video and picture options on the networking site, university officials have begun to search for incriminating evidence to find those responsible for vandalism and other things on the campus.
The Univeristy has actually moved towards facebook to help recruit prospective students to the campus. Conducting focus groups they learned that in spite of early beliefs that students would not want their online space to be invaded, students actually thought it strange for businesses and companies not to be communicating with them through these means. Visit Facebook
The X-Ring and Alumni
A year ago, the universities advancement department unveiled a new online community targeted towards alum who have been away from campus. A quick visit to the site is clear evidence that it is a community on life support. With few updates, cumbersome features and a real lack of interesting information,the site is noticeably absent of active members. In a world of User Generated Content, when the users are not using, the content ceases to exists and the site is doomed. Visit The Ring
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