Facebook Goes Back To School?

Never before in history have humans been more reliant on virtual communication. With us spending more time than ever on the likes of Zoom, House Party, FaceTime, the old fashioned phone call (which has spiked since the global pandemic began), or on OTT platforms (over-the-top i.e. Netflix, Hulu, etc.), there is a tremendous amount of opportunity for social media companies to come up with "the next Facebook." And, who better to come up with next Facebook than Facebook themselves? And, what better way for Facebook to create the next Facebook than by just returning to the original Facebook Mark Zuckerberg created in his Harvard dorm room in the early 2000s? The rumors of a new "Campus" feature within the Facebook app have surfaced over the past few days. According to Endgadget you "need a .edu email address to access Campus, and once you’re in, you can fill out a profile with your graduation year, major, minor and dorm if you want to find your friends on it." With the largest user base in all of social media, why would Facebook go back to where it started?

Facebook's new user numbers are continuing to dwindle as the social media platform isn't in with the cool kids of Gen Z. Facebook's somewhat internal competition with Instagram, alongside SnapChat and now TikTok, has the social media behemoth struggling to stay relevant with the younger generations. While it remains unknown whether college students will return to campus this Fall, Facebook is potentially looking at returning to its roots to stay in front of the college kids of today and tomorrow. Perhaps recreating the exclusivity of the .edu email address is Facebook's hope of returning to the limelight in the world of social media on college campuses. It's far too early to tell if they will officially roll this out in the near future as the above was a reported leak. Nevertheless, expect Facebook and many other platforms to emerge with ideas like "Campus" in the coming weeks and months to take advantage of the virtual world we now live in. Sooner or later, one would think something has to catch on.