By the time Benjamin Chait returned to Boulder last week from freshman orientation at The George Washington University, he had received e-mails from more than two dozen future classmates.
“I kept getting e-mails throughout the night,” said Chait, 17, who graduated from Boulder High School this month.
The contacts came through thefacebook.com, an online social network for college students across North America.
Chait said he plans to use the website to know his classmates better.
“It’s a good way to keep in touch with people and to find ones with similar interests,” said Chait, who now has 44 contacts at GWU through thefacebook.com.
Free to students, the website is an example of social networks that are attracting millions of users and investment dollars.
Thefacebook.com, based in Palo Alto, Calif., was created in 2004 by Harvard students Mark Zuckerberg and his two roommates, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz.
Accel Partners, also based in Palo Alto, invested $12.7 million in thefacebook.com last month.
With the money, the website plans to expand to all 1,400 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. by mid-August, Hughes said.
Currently, the website serves 832 colleges and universities across North America, with more than 3 million students registered. That includes more than 44,000 students at 12 schools in Colorado.
Dozens of national advertisers such as Apple Computer and Victoria’s Secret – as well as hundreds of local advertisers – pay to appear on the site, according to Hughes.
“We became cash-flow positive sometime in January,” said Hughes, who declined to provide financial details. “At the time we had roughly 400 colleges.”
The company, which has a staff of 23, is looking to expand.
“When running a startup, it’s all about laying the groundwork for the right people,” said Sean Parker, 25, president of thefacebook.com. “Your first 20-30 hires will establish the DNA of the company.”
Thefacebook.com is an alternative to the photo books that freshmen sometimes receive on campus as a way to identify one another. Theface book.com is national and available only online.
Website registrants need an e-mail address ending in “.edu” to sign up.
Students, alumni and faculty can create a personal profile with a photo. Among the profile categories are political views, interests, clubs and jobs, as well as favorite music, books, movies and quotes.
Through a searchable name database, anyone can send anyone else a message – or “poke” them – without e-mail addresses being revealed.
Only people at your college or university – or those you’ve identified as “friends” – can view your profile, which can include an e-mail address. Profile information is searchable, and with a click of the link, you can find others whose favorite band is The Killers or favorite book is “The Da Vinci Code.”
Another popular aspect of the website is the inclusion of virtual groups such as “Sushi Lovers Anonymous” or “Colorado State Students for Beer at Hughes Stadium.”
Cord Brundage, 24, said he first heard about the website in January when an announcement was made at the end of a student-government meeting.
He said he was wary of listing his personal information right away.
“I didn’t want to be that accessible, but once I was more comfortable with the confines of the program, the more information I put down,” said Brundage, who graduated from CSU in May.
Thefacebook.com is part of a larger initiative of social networks on the Internet.
Friendster, the first major online social directory, launched in 2003 and was an instant hit. But its popularity faded as competitors such as My- Space and thefacebook.com popped up.
MySpace, which caters to musicians and fans, is the current market leader with 14 million unique page views a month, according to comScore Media Metrix.
MySpace is similar to Friendster in that anyone can join for free.
MySpace was able to raise $5 million in December from Redpoint Ventures, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, Calif.
Zuckerberg’s idea for thefacebook.com was originally planned for only Harvard University.
“It was a small idea that Mark and us were playing around with,” Hughes said. “There was never a specific moment where we went national. After three weeks at Harvard, 6,000 students signed up, so we decided to add Stanford, Columbia and Yale.”
More than 60 percent of the more than 3 million registered students check the website at least once a day during the school year, according to Hughes.
Even during the summer months, 48 percent are still logging in daily, he said.
Staff writer Marcus W. Vanderberg can be reached at 303-820-1209 or mvanderberg@denverpost.com.
Colorado collegians in the book
Number of students at Colorado schools signed up in thefacebook.com, a free online “social networking” service for college students nationwide:
University of Colorado 17,259
Colorado State University 10,256
University of Northern Colorado 4,984
University of Denver 3,442
U.S. Air Force Academy 3,331
Colorado School of Mines 1,654
Colorado College 1,423
UC-Colorado Springs 677
Regis University 652
Metro State College 417
Fort Lewis College 297
Mesa State College 172
Source: thefacebook.com
