It's no secret that Facebook encourages users to spend as much time as possible on the site, doing things like sharing photos, playing games, chatting, and of course, sharing status updates. Now, the company is giving students a reason to visit that's actually related to academics. 'Groups for schools' creates a virtual venue for collegiate collaboration, letting students and faculty members share un-copyrighted files within the groups created for their sports teams, clubs and even individual classes. There is a file limit of 25MB in play, so consider those dreams of sharing videos and zipped up apps crushed -- you'll also need to provide a .edu address that matches the school before Facebook grants you admission. At first, online cliques will be limited to colleges in the US, though global institutions will eventually be permitted to join in on the fun as well. In the meantime, who knows -- perhaps Dropbox will also launch some kind of super-secret, exclusive club in the near future.

Facebook launches 'groups for schools,' keeps enrollment tight originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TechCrunch  |  Facebook  | Email this | Comments