Facebook University: How Far Away Is It?

Ever realized how quickly Facebook has been spine-grafted to our social lives?  Excuse the harsh analogy, but it's true.  After all, what would we do without it?  It's a networking site that allows anyone who isn't internet-savvy to become high-tech overnight, yet complex enough to satisfy the most hardcore of programmers into creating applications for the masses.

I heard the fastest growing demographic on the explosive site were the baby boomers, and whether or not this has a ring of truth to it, one can't deny the power of this website behemoth.  It took Facebook 5 years to accumulate 200 million active users.  After that,  it took only 5 months to acquire an additional 100 million active users.  How incredible would it be for any company to grow 50% in just a half year?

Let's introduce a little business and e-commerce for a moment.  Facebook apps (applications) like Yoville are free for anyone to use, but they have optional bonuses that are pay-to-use.  Want a new bedroom set for your little simulation self?  Just 50 cents.  A new entertainment center for your Yoville friend's birthday?  Dollar fifty.  This may not seem like an impressive profit-maker, but it brings to light a rather interesting concept. 

Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, calls it the concept of "Freemium."  Provide most of your product or service for free, but charge extra if your consumer wants more.  This small percentage of one's consumer base that bites will theoretically pay for the marketing and then some.  Not bad if it didn't cost you anything to put your free samples out there, save a bit of bandwidth.

So, the relevance question: How does this apply to education?  Well, to be frank, your kids are learning on Facebook.  Whether it's how to level up your mafia or how to rescue an animal from someone else's farm, they're learning something.  The pieces are all there, it seems to be just a matter of time before someone makes the connection.  Pay-to-use applications on Facebook; online education pioneered by schooling systems like Florida Virtual School; online colleges like Phoenix University providing a degree in a matter of a few years;  edutainment software such as Leap Frog and Rosetta Stone that must be used on the computer.  Why not combine them all?  As a matter of fact, it probably wouldn't be much of a surprise if Rosetta Stone becomes a free app on Facebook with extra pay-per-lessons available for the user that wants to become more serious.

*UPDATE* 7/29/10 Here's a company that has just done that.

This by no means would be proper to replace primary education, nor might it even be proper to replace secondary education.  On the contrary, an authoritative and interactive figure, such as an instructor, is crucial for a student's success.  However, for a short college preparatory summer course or supplemental lesson to a college student's foreign culture class, Facebook University doesn't seem like too much of a stretch when folks don't think twice to purchase a new fish tank for their virtual Yoville residents (because they're lonely).