MSA joins Facebook?

Posted to On Campus by Zach Toombs at 11:03 p.m., March 3, 2009

The Missouri Students Association may soon become a part of Facebook nation. MSA’s operations committee discussed an act to purchase an MSA Facebook Application at their weekly meeting Tuesday night. The committee chose to delay voting on the act until next Tuesday.

MSA Senator Ryan Morimura presented the act to multiple committees Tuesday night before proposing it to the operations committee. Morimura said MSA would benefit more from a Facebook application than a Facebook group or page.

“An application gives MSA the ability to have something like a website within Facebook,” Morimura said. “You can post announcements, files or a calendar for upcoming events. Plus, you don’t have to be an administrator of the application to invite people to join.”

MSA is working with a company specializing in creating Facebook applications to create the application. Morimura said the company would charge around $2,000 for creating the application and the Department of Student Communication said they would possibly provide $1,000 for it. However, a few members of the Operations committee questioned the possibility of additional costs.

“I’m curious to see if there are any hidden costs, perhaps for extra features on the application,” Operations committee Chairwoman Amanda Shelton said.

The cost of the application would be a recurring annual fee, however Morimura said he planned on proposing the act to the MSA Senate as a one-year trial run.

MSA will get the exact projected cost of the application from The GIN Company on Friday and Morimura will propose the act to the operations committee again next Tuesday.

“I’ve looked at a lot of other schools and this has never been done by a student government as far as I know,” Morimura said.