CampusNetwork
CampusNetwork was an online community for Columbia students, and later other students, that was first launched in the summer of 2003.
Contents
History
The site was founded by Adam Goldberg and Wayne Ting. It was initially called SEASCommunity but it was soon renamed to CUCommunity. In many respects CUCom was a far more advanced product than facebook, offering free photo and journal hosting long before the zuckerbook offered them. Ironically, a common complaint among early users who eventually migrated to facebook when it launched the next semester was that facebook was much "simpler", only offering a static profile page for users.
In September 2004, it relaunched as CampusNetwork, opening up access to students from many other universities as a competitor to the facebook hegemony. At its peak, 75% of the Columbia student body were registered members, and a total of 240,000 users at all the available universities, although a only a fraction were likely active users.
Characters
CUCommunity developed its own campus sub-culture, with celebrities including the infamous Angry Cell Phone Guy.
Many of the malcontents from CUCommunity (Feinstein, ttan, Reaganaut, Pacman, absentminded, among others) now spend their free time editing articles here at WikiCU.
Closing
The website eventually closed in February 2006, presumed overpowered by Facebook.
External links
- STAFF EDITORIAL: A Welcome Distraction, Columbia Spectator, 29 January 2004
- Online CU Community Draws Students Together, Columbia Spectator, 25 February 2004
- CU, Harvard Sites End 'E-War', Columbia Spectator, 22 march 2004
- Columbians, Unite!, Columbia Spectator, 5 April 2004
- In Age of TheFacebook, New Social Rites, Columbia Spectator, 8 September 2004
- CUCommunity Reborn with New Look and New Features, Columbia Spectator, 16 September 2004
- The Other Social Network: How CUCommunity lost out to Facebook, by Chris Beam, Slate, 29 September 2010
