“When the University decided to revamp the entire server system this spring, the program was not compatible with the new IT infrastructure any more,” Albert Liao ’12, manager of the Facebook Agency, which ran the site, said in an email. “Having it rewritten was not cost-effective for our agency ... We knew around February that maintaining the website would be unfeasible.”
The website allowed students to log in with their netIDs and access an online database of University students’ contact information, class years, residential college affiliations and dorm rooms. It was unrelated to the University's official page on Facebook.
Students also had the option to change their profile picture, which defaulted to the picture supplied for their University ID cards. The Princeton Online Facebook also included message boards for student organizations and view counters for each student’s profile.
The site was known for allowing students to discreetly discover more information about their peers. On a PrincetonFML post about the closing of the Princeton Online Facebook, a student under the name “frequent user” posted a comment saying, “There goes my stalking capabilities.”
Liao said that he was unaware of the exact view counts for the site, but noted that hits were frequent. “It was definitely a popular site,” he said.
However, while the original Princeton Online Facebook is now closed, the University opened a similar site, the Residential College Student Facebook, last fall at princeton.edu/collegefacebook.
Like the Princeton Online Facebook, the Residential College Student Facebook allows students to access undergraduates’ PUID photos, University email addresses, hometowns, majors and dorm room addresses.
Students can also search for people using only a portion of their first or last names or browse through students by class year, academic plans and dorm building.
The closed website was maintained by two student employees and a part-time Office of Information Technology staff member. The University provided student information to the agency around July, which was then uploaded to the website by the beginning of each school year.
Though the online version is now closed, the agency said it still hopes to continue its presence on campus.
In April, the Facebook Agency plans to merge with the Yearbook Agency to form the University Publications Agency, according to Liao. The new agency will continue to print the Princeton Freshman Herald, which provides a hard copy of every class year’s freshman photographs, he added.
“Those have been around for 100 years and there are no plans to discontinue it,” Liao said.
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