Is it time for Goodwin College to have a MySpace account? Drury University (MO) has had a MySpace account since 2006: www.myspace.com/druryuniversity. The web editor at Drury also runs www.myspace.com/collegesanduniversities and www.myspace.com/nonprofitorganizations.
The web editor, Heather Mansfield, says "every target audience that colleges and universities are trying to cultive is on MySpace in massive numbers: prospective students (traditional and nontraditional, international), current students, parents, alumni, athletics fans, nonprofit organizations, etc." She also publishes MySpace best practices for the higher education and nonprofit sectors: www.diosacommunications.com/myspaceforhighereducation.htmz and
www.diosacommunications.com/myspacebestpractices.htm.
Mansfield suggests that administrators often overreact when it comes to MySpace or Facebook because they do not social network themselves and they only hear about the worst case scenarois. A Pew Report this January showed that teens are much smarter and more cautious on MySpace than the media give them credit for.
Every major presidential candidate now has a profile on MySpace. The last time I looked, Barack Obama had 160,549 friends--MySpace friends. When I imagine colleges and presidential candidates with MySpace accounts it somehow makes me think of Prospero's lines from The Tempest: "O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!"
Source: Campus Technology May 2007
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