Heard the news today that FaceBook CEO Mark Zuckerburg has been named in a case brought by a rival social networking company ConnectU. Not sure whether this one will run or not (FaceBook 31 million registered users, ConnectU 70k anyone), but it made me think about the tremendous value (potential or otherwise) of social media and networks, precipitating cases like this.
Steve Rubel in this post, discusses the openess or transparency that social networks bring to the PR field. Reading this I was struck by the openness Steve approaches the changes that may occur - it is only at the end that he predicts that the process may be painful.
How painful it could be depends on whether or not a community such as he describes where consumers, journalists and PR professionals (substitute students, potential students and marketing officers) can coalesce and work together.
Small scale initiatives are already taking place in online student recruitment, but until the first genuine large scale application comes along, it is worth looking at how you or your institution can leverage FaceBook, MySpace etc to make connections to your audience both current and future.