Welcome to cyber-campus: make friends and insult people

A controversial US website that shares students' personal details has arrived in the UK. Stephen Phillips logs on

The social life on US campuses is somehow different this year.

The conversations among students are maybe a little less awkward, a bit more assured - better informed, perhaps.

Doing your homework makes all the difference, explains Stuart Mackenzie, a journalism student at Northern Kentucky University. Mackenzie is an avid user of thefacebook.com, a booming online student directory just introduced in the UK. Thefacebook is the brainchild of four Harvard University students, and in its heady 15-month lifetime, the site has become a seemingly indispensable adjunct to US college life. It has even spawned its own verb. These days, when Mackenzie spots an interesting new face on campus, he'll "facebook" it.

"Not only do you see their picture, but their interests, if they're funny, their political affiliations" - even friends you may have in common, says Mackenzie. Where there's romantic interest, he admits to working into conversation the odd reference to favourite movies or bands gleaned from the subject's facebook profile. But he hopes he's not too transparent. It's considered gauche to just blurt out, "I saw you on thefacebook", he says.

But chances are the objects of his affection are wise to such tactics.

Thefacebook is spreading like a computer virus and counts more than 2.7 million users across 833 colleges. A staggering 80 per cent of students at participating institutions are members, and 60 per cent of users check in daily. By popular demand, it was launched in the UK in February at Cambridge and Oxford universities and at the London School of Economics. It has already been extended to eight other British institutions.

John Palfrey, executive director of Harvard's Beckman Center for Internet and Society, calls thefacebook "a hyper-charge to college social life". The site has also caused consternation among officials concerned at personal slurs circulating on it; and several campuses have cried foul over candidates harnessing the site's popularity to canvass votes in student election campaigns.

But after all the failed online business models of the dotcom boom, it represents a prime example of something the internet seems tailor-made for - social networking - and is very probably well on its way to earning a small fortune for its creators. In time-honoured US fashion, chief architect Mark Zuckerberg, 21, has already taken "indefinite leave" from his studies to decamp to Silicon Valley and work full time on thefacebook.

Participants require a college email address, which in theory opens up membership to staff. But older individuals represent just 2 or 3 per cent of users, says co-founder Chris Hughes, 21, who is in his final year studying history and literature at Harvard. He suspects the balance of these are teaching assistants in their late twenties rather than fully fledged faculty. Thefacebook is overwhelmingly a student phenomenon.

Hughes recounts fielding an email from a school-leaver torn between attending two institutions - one with thefacebook, one without. Would the one without be getting it any time soon? she wanted to know. Hughes replied that there were more important criteria on which to judge a college. But he added that the odds were that the one without thefacebook would not be without for long. Institutions are joining at an average rate of 40 a week.

By comparison, British take-up has so far been sedate, with the total number of students just shy of 13,000. This could owe something to the fact that in the US, thefacebook has built on a long-standing campus tradition of issuing "facebooks", which identify fellow students to incoming first-years. But there's nothing officially sanctioned about thefacebook.com.

In place of the stilted blurbs and stiff mug shots of its traditional precursor, students are as often as not pictured in partying mode, or represented by the image of some tacky B-list celebrity or a doctored photo. Interests might include "random play, no strings attached".

Officials are unlikely to approve of the vulgar-sounding expression "poking", another entry in the burgeoning facebook-inspired campus lexicon, and all the rage in US halls of residence. "It's just a flirty way of saying hello," Mackenzie explains. "A message comes up saying you've been poked by so-and-so."

Then there's "the wall" - a virtual toilet wall where visitors can post graffiti, plus an eclectic array of zany interest groups. The ultimate in-crowd, the "hottest-50" guys or girls, is a ubiquitous fixture on different campuses; while the preppy Ivy League fashion statement of turning one's polo shirt collar up has stoked a lively cult of pro and anti "popped collar" groups.

It all seems harmless fun, but concerns have been raised about malicious usage. It may not be too much of a stretch from conducting a little judicious research on someone to predatory stalking. It has also been suggested that the personal information disclosed on the site renders users vulnerable to identity theft. Users control how much personal information is displayed and who has access to it, Hughes counters. But like other online forums, thefacebook has hosted its share of off-colour rants and online vendettas - most notably groups aiming derogatory comments at individuals, including members of staff, that have landed the service in hot water with college authorities several times this year. Minnesota's University of St Thomas recently shut down a group called "I hate Nate Peterson", according to the campus newspaper.

People who abuse the system have their accounts suspended, Hughes says, adding that he opposes staff eavesdropping on thefacebook for surveillance purposes. But despite its independent grassroots credentials, thefacebook is on its way to becoming big business, with a user base that represents a highly coveted advertising market. Hughes is cagey about profitability, saying only that thefacebook is "cash-flow positive".

The site has already landed contracts with student-friendly computer manufacturer Apple and other corporate sponsors. Last month, the firm reportedly secured a $12.7 million venture funding deal.

The prospect of lucrative advertising deals has spawned a legion of copycat sites. Theassbook.com, started by a University of Chicago student, unabashedly bills itself as the "online directory that connects people in order to facilitate the procurement of ass". But perhaps the most revealingly titled rival is iProcrastinate.com.

Amid all the hyperbole, Mackenzie admits to finding himself most strongly drawn to thefacebook when he has an onerous assignment to complete. "You might sign in to check your messages, but you really don't want to work."