Official v Unofficial: RoundUp walks over Avenue

In the not too distance past the FAMU administration was tight lipped and closed, and getting credible information out of our university was a little like breaking behind the iron curtain.

Fast-forward, today, the climate is anything but --and that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the high level of communication is a welcomed changed. The current administration has employed multiple channels to get its message out and communicate with its various audiences. You name it, facebook, youtube, social networking groups, emails, and blogs and there's an official FAMU presence.

However, it is the university's late entry into one such group that has raised the brow of few alumni. Well after the wildly successful launch of the Rattler Round Up, online social networking group by a private group, the university launched its own group using the same technology, Alumni Avenue.

"This (Alumni Avenue) strikes me as a terrible idea, since it could effectively fragment the alumni community online, an outcome that is in the best interests of no one, including the university," said Peter McKay, a FAMU alumnus and member of the RattlerRoundUp internet community.

"I am uncertain which is the bigger catalyst behind the launch (of Alumni Avenue) -- a control-freak instinct regarding public speech or a well-intentioned but half-baked understanding of the Internet," said McKay.

"I sent a message to the creator of the University built site, explained our mission, and included that we would be more than happy to run the headlines of their communication on RRU," said one RattlerRoundUp Administrator. "Marketing a new site, at this point, will only serve to confuse and divide. If their intent is to reach Alumni with information this (RattlerRoundUp) is One Stop Shopping!"

With over 8183 members RattlerRoundUp is clearly the larger of the two sites. An email by McKay questioning the need for a two sites prompted the following "official" response, "as far as other Rattler networking sites are concerned, the Office of Alumni Affairs does not maintain or control any content that originates from private companies or individuals. Our website is able to provide official University news and information for alumni across the country."

"I still believe that the administration is needlessly dividing the alumni base online and that it’s in the alumni’s best interests to congregate in an independent forum," countered McKay.

"The university should've revised its plan to maximize RRU as the primary social-networking tool for alumni outreach, a function that RRU's founders have demonstrated they adamantly support. In fact, the banners on RRU's homepage encouraging members to donate to FAMU Foundation or join the National Alumni Association have consistently gotten more prominent display than anything along the same lines on the homepage of the university's own social network site," McKay added.

Rattler Nation-v-The FAMU blog

"We welcome the new FAMU-run blog," said Rattler Nation founder Ben Davis. "There's room in the blogsphere for them and many more. Besides, even in a bad week we'll still get more traffic than the FAMU blog has managed to muster in the entire six months its been online."

"Heck, Rattler Nation even did a story on their launch," Davis added.