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<div class="original-url">This is huge. </div>
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<div class="original-url">At least some students who list MIT appear to have been invited to join the MIT group. </div>
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<div class="original-url"><a href="http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/11/facebook-groups-for-schools/">http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/11/facebook-groups-for-schools/</a><br>
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<h1 class="title">Facebook goes back to college, releases Groups for Schools</h1>
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<div><img data-size="single" alt="Facebook goes back to college, releases Groups for Schools" src="http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/campus.jpg?w=558&h=9999&crop=0" width="558" height="418" style="float: none; "></div>
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<div><span style="font-weight: 600; ">April 11, 2012 1:32 PM</span> <br>
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<p>It’s back to school time for the world’s largest social network.</p>
<p>Partially <a href="http://newsroom.fb.com/Announcements/Introducing-Groups-for-Schools-144.aspx" target="_blank">
returning to its roots</a> as a locked-down site just for college kids, <a href="http://venturebeat.com/company/facebook">
Facebook</a> has launched Groups for Schools, or university-centric Facebook communities restricted to active faculty and students with .edu email accounts.</p>
<p>“You can join a group for your major to discuss classes, for your sorority to plan upcoming events, or for your dorm to share photos,” Facebook engineer Michael Novati said of the new product.</p>
<p><a href="http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/groups-for-schools.png" target="_blank"><img title="facebook groups for schools" src="http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/groups-for-schools.png?w=300&h=237" alt="" width="300" height="237" style="float: right; "></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/about/groups/schools" target="_blank">Groups for Schools</a>, unique to each college, house all student and staff-created groups in a directory-like fashion, and offer up functionality similar to that of Facebook’s existing
Groups product — except with one important addition. Group members can upload and share files, up to 25 MB in size, to exchange notes, assignments, and so forth with their college cohorts.</p>
<p>Facebook is managing the rollout of Groups for Schools, meaning that the collegiate sub-portals are not yet available at all schools, but once a university is available, active students and staff can start creating and joining groups for cross-campus communication
or private exchanges. Groups for Schools is available at 100 universities, and the full rollout will take a couple days, a Facebook spokesperson told VentureBeat.</p>
<p>“Facebook will continue to iterate on Groups for Schools as the feature is rolled out to more schools. College students are some of our most avid users and provide a lot of useful feedback in order to help us iterate quickly,” the spokesperson added.</p>
<p>The addition of semi-private channels for student and college-specific exchanges is an interesting development. The maneuver could be seen as a defensive tactic meant to protect the
<a href="http://venturebeat.com/tag/facebook-ipo">ready-to-IPO</a> Facebook from emerging private social network competitors. The college communities could also further insulate its most influential members and keep them hooked on Facebook-phonics.</p>
<p><em>Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/drjazz76/" target="_blank">
drjazz76</a></em></p>
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