From the Editor

Face(book)ing the Future

by Sherri Kimmel

July 1, 2009

Recent editor’s columns have detailed changes we’ve made to keep Dickinson Magazine coming to you in these challenging economic times. While we’ve cut back on our pages and some of our mailings, we’ve enhanced our online presence by offering some Web-only stories as well as audio tracks and videos that intertwine with and extend the storytelling range of articles found in our print edition. You’ll know which of our print stories have online enhancements when you see our new Web content icon at the end of relevant stories.

With the publication of our summer issue we’re also rolling out a Facebook fan page for Dickinson Magazine. By establishing a presence on the popular social-networking site we hope to pump up the volume about stories that appear in our print and online editions. Those who join the magazine’s Facebook fan page can dialogue with one another and the magazine staff about articles they’ve read and suggest future articles or issue themes. The editors also can send messages to fan-page members asking for opinions on current and future magazine content.

Our Facebook fan page was developed by Miriam Weiner ’09, our multimedia intern this spring. In a proposal that Miriam developed with her supervisor, Matt Getty, she predicted that a fan page would increase the magazine’s Web traffic, attract new readers and strengthen connections with established readers. Miriam noted that there were more than 300 Dickinson College-related Facebook groups and more than 2,000 users linked to the Dickinson College fan page as of early spring.

One way we hope you will immediately use the magazine’s Facebook fan page is to springboard off our reader-response feature on Page 24 and send in your own anecdotes about your first job out of college. To learn more or to join the fan page, visit www.dickinson.edu/magazine/facebook. All of us at Dickinson Magazine look forward to more Face(book) time with you.