The Interfolio Blog

Recently, a new education-related Twitter service called Alumtweet has graced the new media scene. Though it is technically independent from Twitter, it serves as a search engine, enabling Twitter users to find old high school and college classmates by self-identifying the name of the school and the year they graduated. Alumtweet then generates a message on Twitter from the user that includes the names of high schools and colleges attended and the years the user graduated. Once the user logs onto Twitter from Alumtweet, the message is released and the user can view other alumni and students who have registered from their school.

A recent article about this new service on the Alumni Futures blog weighs pros and cons of such a service. Alumtweet helps you reconnect with classmates that you have lost touch with, or those who are not on Facebook or Myspace. On the downside, it's very loosely regulated and there is no authentication for the individual claiming that he or she graduated from the school they claim to have attended. Another concern is that you have to submit your Twitter log-in information, which does make some people nervous, as it is a third party service. 

But despite the arguments devaluing Alumtweet, it does have the potential to be a very useful service for colleges, universities and other organizations looking to interact with alumni. Not only is it capable of reconnecting old classmates, rekindling friendships or providing a networking outlet, but it could also help get increase awareness and reputation of high schools, colleges, and universities through each school's alumni. In time, drawing more attention to various schools could generate interest and increase traffic to the schools' websites. Schools could also use Alumtweet as a tool to reach alumni directly, which may be far easier than trying to interest them in becoming fans or group members on Facebook or other social networking outlets.

In addition, schools could even use other Twitter-related services as networking tools. Tweetworks is another tool that allows communities to be built around Twitterers, which could easily enable colleges and universities to invite alumni to join communities as an outreach tactic. For example, the Twitter Book Club provides a community where Twitterers choose a book, read it together, and discuss their thoughts and reactions. Similar tools could be used for alumni to share college experiences and reflections, or even advice to current students. Any chance to reach alumni or create exposure is not a wasted opportunity. Of course all of this requires that enough alumni use Alumtweet to make it effective, so it will be interesting to see how Alumtweet develops and is used. We think that once some of the initial concerns are worked out, Alumtweet looks quite promising!