Facebook launched a new platform (Groups for Schools) today concentrating on the educational realm. The move was launched today at Facebook and will surely be extremely important for the company’s future. The specialization revealed in the move hints at further progression for the social media giant.
The new service of Facebook Groups for Schools is only available to those who have email addresses with a .edu ending, only available to educational institutions. The platform will allow students and teachers to share documents and comments between them. The service will rival the web software used by colleges and high schools to distribute class materials. The most popular platforms in the are must be nervous today with Facebook’s announcement. Blackboard is very popular among University administrations and the new service from Facebook appears to duplicate most of the services offered by that company.
Facebook will take advantage of its outstanding membership to move into the educational sector. The existing relationships between teachers and students on the websites will make the transition to a Facebook classroom easier and more natural. If the service manages to take off, and given Facebook’s massive advantage in having people already invested in their framework. If it does manage to gain the attention of educators it opens avenues for the social media company to offer specialist services to other sectors. It’s possible for a Facebook that caters to specific professions or other social differentors. That would allow the company to target its advertisements with much more specialties. If that does predict the company’s future strategy then the diversification of the social media landscape will continue. Already there are social media websites concentrated on different sectors but Facebook may try to invade the space of those specialists. Whether or not this is the company’s forethought the educational sector is ripe for the taking, being undeveloped technologically compared to other sectors.
The move by Facebook is complementary to Apple’s migration to the educational sector. Apple announced an update to its iBooks platform, which was sued by the Department of Justice today, last year that will see textbooks being offered to students on their mobile computing devices. Facebook’s offering shows the spread of tech companies into more specialized industries starting with education. College and high school students are ideal as customers for tech companies as they tend to be the most technologically dense share of the market.
