“It’s almost like a full-time job. Keeping almost 1,000 friends is not easy,” said Walied Khogali, who, with 923 Toronto Facebook friends, is surely one of the most popular people at U of T. And he seems to know how to keep them.
“Never forget anyone’s birthday-always wish whoever’s birthday it is a happy birthday,” he advised. And don’t forget to send ‘pokes,’ or electronic nudges, to your friends. “I spend about 10-15 minutes a day poking people back.”
For Khogali, a U of T Mississauga (UTM) student and former vice-president UTM for the Students’ Administrative Council, Facebook is a way to get university students involved, by keeping them abreast of events.
“It’s students helping students,” he said.
Facebook even helps Khogali track who owes him what, thanks to a plug-in called MoochSpot, a program which reminds debtors of their owings.
What began in February 2004 as a program cooked up on a student’s laptop at Harvard University (half the campus signed on within a couple of weeks) has grown into the most popular social network among college students, and the seventh most visited website in America.
Each user sets up and maintains a profile page, entering information about themselves, adding other friends to their network, and joining interest groups or searching for events. “User-generated content” is the buzzword, and it’s all the rage. Yahoo! is said to be thinking of buying Facebook. Its price tag will likely range in the billions.
Yet it’s not just student leaders who are hooked. Professors and politicians are also getting in on the action.
Among them is U of T Prof. Parham Aarabi, of electrical and computer engineering. He joined in order to stay in touch with old friends from Stanford. But FAcebook does not yet figure in his teaching plans.
“It’s a fun distraction, but not at all useful for me professionally,” Aarabi said in an e-mail interview. But he believes it helps humanize him to his students.
“With me being there they get to see me more as a person rather than a lecturing robot,” he said.
And another (former) U of T professor is in on it as well. Liberal leadership hopeful Michael Ignatieff counts 191 friends at U of T.
“Part of the campaign is Facebook,” said national youth campaign director Brian Clow, a part-time poli sci student and former president of Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council (VUSAC). “It’s an amazing outreach tool.”
Ignatieff was able to get on Facebook in the spring, on account of his U of T e-mail address.
“I log in once or twice a day to update friend requests,” said Clow. “We do our best to communicate and return some comments as if it was a letter to the campaign office.”
