Back when Facebook was a social network only for college students, one of the most popular features was the ability to see not only who was in your class, but who else was taking the same courses as you. (It must have been great for coming up with insightful pick-up lines). Facebook did away with that feature as it broadened beyond the college market. But now another startup is looking to fill the void that Facebook left behind. It is called Inigral and it is backed by the Founders Fund, the same group of angel investors who first invested in Facebook (Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund is still on Facebook’s board).
Rather than reinvent the wheel, Inigral is building its applications on top of Facebook. Its first Facebook app was called Courses, which basically aped the canceled feature that students loved (along with other, more popular apps by other companies, such as Cramster’s Courses 2.0). But that was just a placeeholder. The app it is putting all of its efforts into is called Schools. It too runs on Facebook, but it is much more fully-featured.
In fact, it has so many features that Inigral is planning on charging for it. Who would pay for a Facebook app? Not students, that’s for sure. Instead, Inigral plans on charging universities. It is, in that sense, one of the first enterprise apps on Facebook. Co-Founder Michael Staton says:
The whole model of spam and advertise to try to get as many users and clicks in the least time possible isn’t the only way to build a company [on Facebook]. It is a saturated way to build a company.
Universities are asking, “Why are all the students using Facebook?” They want to plug into Facebook to enhance their own mission.
Staton is selling his app to universities as a social utility that lets students show each other not only what courses they are taking, but other campus affiliations such as student organizations, athletic teams, majors, and residence halls. Once it knows all of this about a student, it lets her sort friends and classmates by who shares the most things in common with her.
Schools knows all of this information because it taps directly into a university’s student information system. So that when a participating student changes a course with the registrar, it automatically shows up on Facebook. (With the student’s consent and appropriate privacy controls). Students can only download the app if their university agrees to license it. Currently it is in a limited private beta with Abilene Christian University in Texas, but it is about to roll it out to to other other select partner colleges. A more public release won’t be available until the spring semester.
Inigral will charge a few dollars per student, and in return schools get a way to interact with their students on Facebook in a way that they can control. It is really a group management app for instructors, athletic teams, and student organizations to contact their members and manage events through a forum students are already using anyway.
Now this has some promise. Would be interesting to see if Inigral is planning on going beyond just the school market and into other organizations. There probably tens, if not hundreds of thousands of organizations that would like a better way to interact and communicate with their members (alumni associations, the greek system, volunteer organizations, etc).
possibly the first semi-useful app for facebook!
Freakin’ amazing. Stick this in the “why didn’t I think of this?” column. Simple concept but brilliant execution. It took me a second to realize why the Founder’s Fund would invest in a Facebook app.
After reading about enough future-web-2.0/Facebook-app-flops, a person approaches losing all faith in the creative business insight of the Internet community…
Then something like Schools comes along to totally redeem itself! But seriously, this concept definitely has some promise. Students are going to be using Facebook anyway, heavily, possibly obsessively, so why not adopt the platform as a means for them to connect around school? There just might be real engagement and *gasp* educational benefits brought about my making it a little easier to network in your freshman lit class of 233. It could also increase participation in student groups through promotion of others’ affiliations.
One concern is universities existing relationships with virtual learning software vendors, like WebCT at my alma mater. Schools have outlaid some fundage for these programs and there is some feature overlap. Plus, what’s stopping these existing companies from porting their applications to Facebook overnight?
Inigral will need to work to distinguish itself, but it looks like it’s got a good start going. For one thing, it’s a Facebook application with a unique business model, and the established firms will probably be slow to respond.
Good luck!
A new social organizer。。。
Good to see some enthusiasm! We’re definitely hitting a chord here. It’s an exciting space, and now its all about execution. We welcome any feedback or encouragement.
Congrats!
Good idea I think to have this as a Facebook app to start with but I think if its successful it could be a good idea to have own site.
Keen how charging universities will actually work.
I haven’t played with either of these apps but this seems similar to what blackboard is trying to do. I logged into my blackboard to look to see if my classes are posted yet and noticed a “Blackboard Sync” button on the left that had never been there. A click on it took me to a TOS, I then quit and went to google. http://blackboardsync.com
I always wondered where that tool went to… I found it so useful, not just for pickup lines, but for *collaborating* on coursework. But seriously, I miss that feature. Its great asset I think was that it was so simple to email that particular someone taking the same course as you that you didn’t actually know, and get info about what you missed that day or an assignment that is due.
Even with permissions and privacy implementations, this smells of information protection and leakage in serious ways. A lot of schools are getting more strict on the information it releases… it’ll probably be tough for them to justify the release of information when they have to pay Facebook for the application. Schools don’t like to pay you, they like to ream you.
Lastly, in response to “why didn’t I think of that”, I’ve been presenting my course schedules online for three years now through the Excel > PDF export… so this feature from Facebook would definitely interest me.
Cheers
Schools will never pay for this because the features are already available on Facebook for free to do the same thing. There’s no benefit for the school, and actually hardly any benefit for the student.
@harold,
these features are not available on facebook for free, otherwise we wouldn’t have spent so long building them! the school benefits from increased connectivity amongst classmates and students earlier on (as well as many other trade secret like things) and the student benefits by having a campus safe identity they can use to connect with people they’d rather not be total “friends” with.
anyway, best!
Michael
^ Totally LOL-some.
@harold, not @staton.
Finally something that sounds like a real business can be created around.
Ads are overrated.
Fascinating idea.
Will inigral pay facebook for “rent”? What happens if facebook raises it? Is there some kind of contractual guarantee in place aside from the mutual investors?
Adrian, Facebook allows developers to create on top of Facebook at no charge. There is no contractual agreement (or any other form of agreement) between Inigral and Facebook. All developers operate independently in the marketplace.
Very impressive! Good luck!
Let the record show, the real value add for universities is that they no longer have to be hesitant to embrace Facebook. Facebook makes universities skiddish - they are nervous about putting data they are responsible for keeping private so close to Facebook. However, we’ve put the extra touch to make sure that 1) its a product an institution can feel comfortable adopting, 2) its a tool instructors would feel comfortable on, and 3) its a social app students will be engaged with.
Also, it’s still in private beta so I can’t really talk about the cool stuff coming down the pipeline. But, trust me, you’re school/alma mater will want in.
Great idea, huge potential.
Good luck Michael and team!
I couldn’t stand more than about 20 seconds of the video… the annoying, raspy voice of the speaker immediately made me not want to use this application. Please, learn how to market your product better.
@Don,
Perhaps you couldn’t imagine we’ve been too busy with making a great product to try to perfect our speed demo?
And, that’s my voice
But yes, upping the efforts on the marketing glitz is on the near horizon to prepare for our release for the spring. (Perhaps the hot babes in our demo videos will charm you into a believer then).
I think your product is great and look forward to using it.
Finally a useful app on Facebook - can’t wait to use it.
damn, I have been thinking about this, I actually have some drafts on this concept and beyond it.
I wish I had money to hire developers to write the code :S
its second time this happens to me, first one was with friendfeed.
@elvirs Just remember, anytime you have a new idea, Simpsons did it!
What if Blackboard starts focusing on its own Facebook app? It already has registrar integration with many universities, and buy-in from instructors.
On the other hand, Blackboard doesn’t have the best branding with students, so when it comes to school related UGC a new player could have a huge advantage. Really comes down to which data set is more valuable, the UGC, or the formal registrar data?
Congratulations guys, good luck!
Blackboard is a grown up own company and it can do what it wants. We think that ultimately we’ll be able to distinguish our offering.
Best,
Michael
Dang, I wish I was still in school! This makes soo much sense. Facebook is where kids in school hang out. It’s where they already have an identity and where they connect with their friends from school. Naturally any social app that involves school work should be on Facebook.
Michael, congrats on the TC coverage! Really good to hear that things are moving along with the app. I look forward to learning more and seeing how we might collaborate through NIXTY.
Something along these lines already exists on facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/schoolbook
@ Rob,
Well, we built one of those things that already exists called http://apps.facebook.com/courses
but the thing is if you want to actually make money you need to build it right. and building it right takes a lot of careful thought, design, and effort.
You know this will be used by stalkers and nut jobs.
@FaceLess
Schools are greatly concerned about “stalkers and nutjobs” so we’ve built in quite a few privacy controls to make that a non-issue.
Thank you for your insightful critique.
Best,
Michael
“is selling his app to universities”…kind of hard for a small start-up to do. do they have a direct sales force? experience selling sw to universities? isn’t the decision making and buying process long and painful?
@ann
you are correct. it will be difficult, but we will see how it goes!
best,
Michael