Photo Illustration by Nic Barajas

Freshman Cate Wright couldn’t wait for Oct. 10.

Ever since she heard about thefacebook.com this summer from a friend attending New York University, she had petitioned to get Ithaca College added to the site. After pestering her friends to e-mail the programmers, she finally received good news — South Hill students could soon sign up.

Now, a week and a half after joining, Wright visits the site about a half dozen times a day.

“I’m kind of addicted,” she said.

Thefacebook.com allows college-age students to post their pictures and profiles, creating an online social network. First launched at Harvard University in February, the site has grown to house information on almost 500,000 students from 163 colleges and universities.

Since thefacebook.com became accessible to Ithaca College students, many have been sucked in by its hypnotic friend-sharing capabilities. And more continue to join daily. The first day the site opened at the college, over 350 joined. By the end of the first week, there were nearly 1,300 South Hill members.

“It was crazy, I saw that a bunch of people were already on it, so they had already heard too, which was cool,” Wright said. “I got my friends to be obsessed with it, too.”

When a student joins the site, they are prompted for their names, e-mail addresses and other basic facts to post next to their pictures. Members can add to their profiles by filling in an “extended info” section, which includes room for personal interests, relationship status and favorite movies, books and music.

Searching the site for members with a common interest is as simple as clicking on a phrase in a profile, or using the “search” button.

“There are people that I’ve seen on campus or people in my own hall, and I’ve never really talked to them but I’ve been able to see what they like,” said freshman Joseph Lowardo.

When sophomore Shelly Helgeson logged onto thefacebook.com for the first time, she was apprehensive. A former roommate had sent her a link to the site, but Helgeson found no evidence that the site was legitimate.

Like many on campus, she was reluctant to join, until her current roommate sat at Helgeson’s computer and forced her sign up.

“This is really not me,” Helgeson said. “I really don’t usually do things like this, I really hate IM.”

Nonetheless, she is now connected as a “friend” with 60 other students at the college, after competing with her real-life friends to see who could get more virtual acquaintances.

Lowardo has taken advantage of the “global search” feature, as well. This has allowed him to connect to former high school classmates who are attending colleges far away.

Students use the site in different ways for different reasons, Face Book representative Chris Hughes said.

“It’s a reference tool and a means for communication,” he said. “I think that combination, and the fact that it’s fun to use, keeps people coming back.”

The site was created by a team led by Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard student.

“He wanted to combine an idea for a universal online database with an interactive social networking interface,” said Hughes. After a few weeks of work and many late-night dorm-room conversations, thefacebook.com was exclusively released at Harvard, he said.

Hughes said the site is unlike Friendster.com, a site it is often compared to.

“The Face Book is grounded in specific, real college communities,” Hughes said. “The Face Book is not a place where a user meets a ‘random’ person, but instead where individuals foster acquaintance-ships or friendships that already exist.”

He said the site is a great resource of college students’ information “and also provides unique capabilities such as text messaging from the site and group organization.”

Junior Stephanie Barnish got hooked on the site with help from a friend. She said its most useful feature is that she can find people in her classes for advice. Barnish was surprised the number of people who wanted to be her “friend.”

“I feel like I have to get more friends now to my list, because five is just not enough,” she said.

While some see this as just a fad that will die within a month, others see its popularity lasting for a while.

“I think it’s just a new craze, it’s kind of like the Pokemon cards,” Helgeson said. “Once we max out our friends, I give it a month.”

Although many are hooked, Barnish believes the site will soon lose its appeal, even though she still wants to get her roommate to join.

To Lowbardo, it’s more than a fad. He said the site is still growing and its popularity will continue once other schools are added, enabling more people to connect to friends from high school.

“As long as they can keep growing, I think they can get a lot better,” Lowbardo said.

Hughes said thefacebook.com plans to expand to a million users by the end of the year. 

“I can say that I do think the Face Book and similar sites have found, and then expanded upon, a niche in the way individuals socialize,” Hughes said.

From casual users to addictive users to students who refuse to sign up, the site is a hot topic of conversation all over campus.

“I don’t feel like it monopolizes a lot of my time,” Lowardo said. “I still check my e-mail, I do it around the same time. A couple minutes for my e-mail a couple minutes for the Face Book.”