TLT CoffeeRead: College Alumni Magazines Struggle to Compete With Facebook
Posted on June 2, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized
College Alumni Magazines Struggle to Compete With Facebook
“Most people read their college alumni magazines for the class notes, immediately flipping to the back to see who was married, had a baby or was promoted to an envy-inducing job. The columns tend to be meatiest at this time of year — class reunion season.
The advent of social networking on the Internet has created a quandary for these magazines, which want to maintain a conversation with alumni but have been slow to embrace the Web. Most schools have set up password-protected sites where graduates can change their contact information, drop a class note or donate money.
But younger alumni, accustomed to second-by-second updates from friends and classmates, are exchanging information in real time on Facebook and MySpace. Why wait for your alma mater to churn out a quarterly journal when you can Twitter all day?”
This is an interesting article that really raises questions not just for alumni magazines but other association or “house organ” publications.
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2 Responses to “TLT CoffeeRead: College Alumni Magazines Struggle to Compete With Facebook”
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I enjoy The PennStater Magazine, but mostly for the articles, not the “news”. It makes a lot of sense to have this feature as a web based community. I wonder when the Alumni Association starts to take notice of a changing market? They do have a “message board” on their web site, but it’s run by the CDT. Maybe the facebook crowd needs to up their donations?
I enjoy my alumni magazines for the content more than anything. Would I use an alumni specific social network? I would, but only if people from my class were there as well … from what I can tell, they wouldn’t be there. A facebook approach is perfect for the recent graduates, but I feel like I’d be part of a very small group in my demographic. Not that alumni associations shouldn’t be pushing towards this … its just at the moment it isn’t working for the bulk of the members.