How Facebook Platform Works and Why We Like It
At Inigral, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to build an application that integrates with Facebook, perhaps the most advanced and interesting platform ever created.
Schools on Facebook and The Big Decision
After months of talking to my parents in depth, as well as advisors and mentors, the decision was pretty clear — my only option was to go to college, and so here I am, ready to go to College of San Mateo in the fall. Now that I know where I’m going to school, I wish I knew more then twenty people that will be attending the same school as me, and would love to find entrepreneurial people like me to meet, and share ideas with.
Spring Semester in Review: Maricopa, NJIT, Harvey Mudd, Launch Schools on Facebook
Our team is having a great semester on the west coast, with lots of momentum built up from successful deployments of Schools on Facebook at the Maricopa Community College District, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and Harvey Mudd College.
Scale your Communications using Social Networking
In the past, you were limited by the amount of paper you could afford. Publications could only hold so much. Brochures and newsletters could only cover aspects of your institution that would be of interest to a large number of individuals.
Facebook Developers Garage Comes to Inigral HQ
Last week, members from Facebook’s engineering team came out to our Berkeley offices for the inaugural Facebook Developers Garage. We had an awesome turnout, with over 200 people hacking away at their apps. The team at Causes hosted the event, while our CTO, George Deglin presented on an open source javascript library that Inigral has [...]
Call for Innovation Partners – Winter 2009
Inigral has been fortunate enough to have great Founding Partners. These are schools that bought into the vision of meeting their students where they spend their time online – on Facebook. They helped us mold that vision into something palatable – our Lifecycle Engagement Platform – with a coherent set of capabilities that would extend the power of Facebook and Social Media for Higher Education. We’ve learned a lot, and we’ve built almost as much. We haven’t been perfect. But we’ve been faster and more responsive than any vendor we’ve heard about.
Facebook Facebooks About Schools on Facebook
For the past few months, Facebook has focused marketing efforts on the education community. And since that shift, they have spent time identifying the real movers and shakers using Facebook to add practical value to educators around the world. We were interviewed by their marketing team to learn more about how our application, Schools, benefits [...]
Facebook Developer Garage: Roadmap Edition
This week’s Facebook Developer Garage was special. It was the first “Roadmap Edition,” where Mark Zuckerberg (Founder and CEO) and Ethan Beard (Director of Facebook Developer Network) took an unprecedented step in terms of laying out Facebook’s near future plans upcoming changes to the platform. This is great for developers because since we’ve wrapped our [...]
2009 Eduventures Online Higher Education Learning Collaborative Annual Member Meeting
Eduventures, a leading research and consulting firm for higher education institutions, hosted their Online Higher Education Learning Collaborative Annual Member Meeting this morning, where over 80 representatives from higher ed online programs gathered to discuss the effects that technology will have on online learning. Amongst the members, approximately 25% were for-profit institutions, while the other [...]
Professors Increase Engagement With Facebook
Arizona State Professor Lisa Rodrigue McIntyre seized this opportunity to try something new with her students last semester. She joined about 50 other Arizona State professors to use Schools in an attempt to reach their students within Facebook. Lisa had one goal in mind when using the application, and it was to increase engagement with students through a means of communication that they were comfortable with.
September Wrap-Up
Greetings Inigral friends! It’s been a fast and furious month here on the west coast, but productive nonetheless. Hopefully your newest class of Freshmen are settled in at this point. We can’t wait to hear about the new things you’ve tried this year to make them feel at home! Here’s what we’ve been up to. Earlier this month, we were invited to speak at Facebook’s headquarters to help educate their platform team of what we’re up to for the upcoming school year.
What Facebook for iPhone 3.0 Means for Inigral
By now, every Facebook user with an iPhone probably has Joe Hewitt’s latest creation: Facebook for iPhone 3.0. It’s a beautiful application, with a totally revamped interface and functionality. Several noteworthy features were launched including a new home screen which will offer the ability to customize (i.e. adding boxes to the default start screen), a better ‘News Feed’ (a [...]
NC State is Ahead of the Game on Twitter!
By now, many schools have joined the Twittersphere, using the tool to help broadcast campus news, post athletics updates, and even promote themselves to prospective students. It’s a great place to reach a wide audience, easily, and start some really important conversations.
Facebook Profiles as Acceptance Criteria
Since Facebook opened user profiles to the public in 2006, there has been much debate around whether Facebook profiles are an appropriate face for college students to show to admissions counselors and potential employers.
Using Facebook to Teach History
A friend recently contacted me about an idea she had to use Facebook to teach history, by having students pick political thinkers from the enlightenment to today and have them friend each other and talk.
Inigral Speaks at Facebook HQ
Last week, we were invited to Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto, CA to present on how we’re changing the way higher education uses social media. It was very informative both for us to hear from the creators of Facebook’s platform on how Schools on Facebook was the type of application they envisioned being used when it was first built.
Inigral in New York
From June 3rd to June 6th, our CEO Michael Staton and I had the pleasure of attending the first ever Internet Week in New York City. Michael was one of five speakers on the “Beyond Facebook: How Will Today’s Students Use the Web of Tomorrow?” panel, hosted by FindingDulcinea on Thursday afternoon. The entire experience was enlightening.
The Next Phase of Social Media: Facebook Platform Finally Realized
It wasn’t always the case when a company could execute a business plan that was solely revolved around another company’s platform. And then there was Facebook. With over 225 million members, and over 500,000 registered developers, the platform has become a sustainable ecosystem for garage start-ups with two people (such as Sticky Notes), or companies with over 100 employees (like Zynga). A recent post on VentureBeat showed that these developers could generate over $500M in revenues this year, which puts the platform on an even playing field, if not greater, than Facebook itself.
Inigral/Serious Business Presentation Night
“Hvordan går det?” filled the air Monday night near San Francisco’s Montgomery street Bart Station, as Inigral and Serious Business presented their varying business models to a visiting group of Danish entrepreneurs. Serious Business Founder and CEO Siqi Chen, along with members from Inigral’s founding team including Michael Staton (CEO), Joseph Sofaer, and George Deglin, explained how startups are becoming fully sustainable on top of this emerging platform.
Arizona State University Launches “ASU on Facebook”
Not often is Tempe, Arizona brought up in conversations about prominent cities for cutting-edge technology. Maybe basketball, as Arizona State University’s James Harden is expected to be a top-five draft pick in this year’s NBA Draft. In higher education however, a conversation about technology can’t be had without them.
has_many :through polymorphic with STI
The code for has_many :through polymorphic is pretty straightforward but what if you are using Single Table Inheritance (STI) on either or both sides of the polymorphic through table? There were a number of painful hacks to make this work until a patch to ActiveRecord by Trevor Squires added the :source_type key to has_many :through [...]
