I’d like to delve into an analysis of the wide world of social networking in the collegiate world, but that has proven to be a pretty daunting task. It is important to recognize that there is a distinct difference between the online presence of college students and the general population that engages in ‘web 2.0′ activities, but more on that later. I’ve decided to make a mini-series of posts over the next few weeks to really delineate the ripples that social networking technology has made since it has been dropped into the collegiate pond.

I have come to find the ‘ripple’ metaphor to be a good tool in describing the overall effect that the online ’social revolution’ has had. When you drop even the smallest pebble into a body of water, it will cause an initial splash that greatly affects the water immediately around it, but then the actions of those close-proximity water molecules cause the molecules next to them to respond…do that a few thousand times and you get a ripple. As the ripple expands out into the body of water, it affects all the water it passes through, as well as anything that might be on the water’s surface. Eventually, the ripple hits the edge of the pond and bounces back…unless the body of water is so big that the ripple just fades out and disperses. Drop a few pebbles into a pond and you get overlapping ripples that cause all sorts of commotion and waves.

The metaphor paints the picture of various aspects of the external world affecting change throughout the college market. While you might be able to say that it could apply to new products and services dropped into the general market, I’m focusing on the collegiate side of things. The ripples in the collegiate market tend to be a lot stronger than in the general market because students are the most brand loyal, idealistic, impressionable, and forthcoming demographic in the marketing world. Ripples through a student population begin to overlap and get lost in one another, blurring the lines between students’ academic, personal, and business lives; for a student, everything is figuratively portable from one aspect of life to the next, because most do not work 9-5 and leave everything behind on a desk at work. A student takes their work home: a coffee table might be a multimedia work center or a textbook might be used more often as a coaster than as a learning device. In general, students are also willing to try out new things that might still have some bugs or other issues, thus making college students a prime launching pad for startup companies.

When this willingness for experimentation is combined with a general ‘follow-the-crowd’ mentality, you begin to see a place from where just about anything can emerge with minimal encouragement. If you have a product that can’t be successful in a college market, you probably are not ready for prime time yet. (Unless, of course, you have a product that is micro-targeted to a demographic outside the college age bracket).

The point of this extended metaphor is to set the stage for the rest of this series by illustrating how the student life is continually in flux, has no definite boundaries between its segments, and allows for testing or launching products in the most penetrable market on earth. This translates into a unique opportunity for a relatively small development to cause major shifts in a variety of areas such as marketing, social constructs, academic coordination, and external communication: all of which are subjects to be discussed in the coming weeks.