Save Your Students $850 Million!

AOL announced today that it was buying social network Bebo for $850 million in cash. A staggering price considering that Bebo has quite a few less users than MySpace or Facebook. However, they do have a lot more users in other countries such as the UK and New Zealand. Given AOLs other woes, it does seem like a bit of an odd direction to take.

Even though your students probably don't have a spare $850 million lying around, that doesn't mean they can't get in on the social networking action. Just send them over to Ning which is a site where they can create their very own personal social network...for free!

A five minute sign up process is all it takes to be off and running with your own network. You can invite members, post content and control the look and feel of your social network's home page. You can choose to have the network viewable by anyone or keep it restricted to members only. You choose the URL for your network which will end in ning.com and therefore would look something like this: mycoolnetwork.ning.com. You can host blogs, threaded message forums and several other features. The learning curve is very low as it has a similar look and feel to established social networks.

So how does Ning make money? The network you set up has rather unobtrusive Google Adsense ads on the side of the page which generate revenue for Ning. But if you want to control the ad content on your site and keep the revenue for yourself, all you need to do is pay Ning $10 per month and you can remove all of their ads and put up your own.

I think that setting up a social network would make a great group project for a computer literacy or business class. Groups could compete to sign up the most members, have the largest number of relevant blog postings, generate the most useful message threads, etc. So send your students out there to play around and see what happens.

Pictures Not to Include on a Blog or a MySpace Page

I'm always amazed at the pictures that students will put on blogs or social networking sites. They may be great photos to share with your friends, but if you are identified in the photo, is it worth jeopardizing your chances of being selected for a job? Just in case you need some guidelines about what not to include on your site, here are a couple of suggestions...

You may feel passionately about a particular cause...which is fantastic...get involved! However, a prospective employer may not agree with your views. In the majority of cases, you should keep your personal views separate from your work life.


Anything showing you with alcohol, partially clothed or in an embarrassing situation. It might have been a great party, but will it impress an employer?


It is hard to imagine how the ability to do a keg stand would impress any boss! Yet I constantly see these photos on the web.


Discussion Questions for Students:
1. Have you ever posted anything online that feel that a potential employer should not see? Do you think it would affect you landing employment?
2. Should employers check the Internet for information before hiring potential employees? Why or why not?
3. Do you think that you should have a right to privacy regarding information you place on a MySpace or Facebook page? How would you ensure that your privacy was protected?

Create a Web Site - Find a New Career

Over the years, plenty of people have thought that just knowing a little bit of HTML coding qualified them to be Web site designers. But for Linda Katz of southwest Kansas, practicing her Web design skills helped her launch an entirely new career -- as a tumbleweed farmer!

The Prairie Tumbleweed Farm started out as a simple Web design exercise. Linda wanted to practice her skills and created the farm as a joke back in 1994. But, people found her site and soon began contacting her because they wanted to buy the tumbleweeds! One thing led to another, and Linda now has a thriving business. Her customers include NASA, major Hollywood studios, fashion designers, and ordinary people who just want to own one of these iconic symbols of the old West.

Linda was recently featured on Yahoo!'s People of the Web and she has an interview posted on YouTube, which you can view by clicking the link below:



Discussion Questions for Students
1. Do you personally know anyone who is running a successful Internet business? Do you know how they got started?
2. Have you ever considered creating your own online business? What type of product or service would you offer?
3. Hands-on Exercise: Ask students to find a YouTube video featuring an interview with an entrepreneur who operates an online business.