Stanford Report, March 7, 2009

Stanford news, coming to you from Facebook

BY DAN STOBER

Facebook users now have a simple, real-time way to follow what’s happening on the Stanford campus. Anyone signed up as a “fan” of Stanford on Facebook can receive news updates, photos and videos by simply logging in to his or her personal Facebook account.

Among the first postings from the new service: The video of a not-to-be-missed performance by the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra.

Fans can expect a regularly updated feed of the most interesting and thought-provoking news and stories from across campus, said Ian Hsu, Stanford’s director of Internet media outreach. The university also is exploring ways to utilize its official Facebook presence for emergency response and communications.

Until now, institutional Facebook pages such as those of Stanford, the New York Times or Barack Obama functioned essentially as static web pages.

But now these pages have a new name—public profiles—with the same features as the personal profiles created by Facebook’s 175 million members. These new “public profiles” may now post messages, links, photos and videos, which will be included in the Facebook stream seen by Stanford fans.

Fans will be able to customize the amount of Stanford information that appears within their personal news feeds, and they will be able to comment on items posted by the university.

Stanford is the only university invited to participate in the early rollout of the new public profiles. The university is joined by Anderson Cooper, Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears, The Colbert Report, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Michael Phelps, the NBA, the New York Times, President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Service Nation, the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Red Cross, the Today show, and U2.

This builds on the university’s efforts to make its discoveries and knowledge widely and broadly available to people everywhere, including on YouTube and Stanford on iTunes U.

To check out the new public profile, go to http://www.facebook.com/stanford. To become a Fan, click on “Become a Fan” in the upper left-hand corner of the page (Facebook registration is required).

“It’s a chance to take in the intellectual and cultural life of the university, and participate in that from your Facebook home in a really easy and fun way,” Hsu said. “We want to better connect with, and have a conversation with, alumni, prospective and current students, parents, professors, sports fans, local community members—whoever’s interested in Stanford University.”