Social Media Week in NYC & Higher Education

I went to the Higher Education panel of Social Media Week last week which was held at the McGraw Hill publishing offices in mid-town.  The McGraw Hill presenter talked about "the nexus between social media, data analysis and workflow tools" and so I was excited to see what the event would be about.  After this brief presentation about what McGraw Hill is doing in the world of technology, visitors were invited to a poster session featuring various tech companies.  McGraw Hill's own platform is called GradeGuru.com and it is basically a website where college students share their notes with other college students.  They are given incentives--prizes--for putting their notes up online.  Their literature says that GradeGuru is a "ready to use study network where students can: join their school and class communities, share study materials and collaborate with their peers, create and share class study materials, build their academic profile, set class goals, track progress and keep motivated."  Wow.  Sounds kind of impressive, but let's remember that most college students are already on Facebook or Twitter and are sharing ideas and materials through those platforms.  I asked a MH representative why students want to share their notes with other students (and probably only the smart students who are good writers would be even interested in this gameplan)....and he said that it relates to the era of sharing.  It seems, in some way, that MH is just really trying to gain access to the college population.  I know no one who has ever used GradeGuru.com and I teach and work at three universities in the metropolitan area.  Hmmm.  Next, I skipped over the guys from Google Apps for Education and the Skype table which was making a big sell about how professors are now using their software to skype with students.  I love skype and use it all the time, but I think Blackboard and other university software has chat/stream capabilities on most major campuses already.  I then went to Unigo.com which is another MH website where college students and experts tell you what the colleges won't about certain colleges.  Sounds like a guide to colleges by students, to me.  That has certainly been done before.  Next I talked to another bunch of guys about their website Jatched.com which apparently connects college students to certain brands.  I asked them--"shouldn't college students be studying and not going online to get things sold to them"--and the guy laughed and said--well, in between studying, they could go to the site.
All in all, I have to say, I was highly disappointed by the offerings at this Social Media Week event for higher education.  It seemed like companies just want to have the niche of the audience of college students to "sell" them something---becoming motivated to get good grades by posting their notes, branding consumer products to them, etc.  It was so frustrating to see that, ultimately, the interpretation of Social Media Week for Higher Education amounted to--what can we sell to college students because they are such a great niche market.  I found very little creativity in terms of what students really want or need in college.  I felt like every young entrepreneur there was trying desperately to have that million dollar idea that could be ultimately bought up by a bigger company so they could make tons of money.  I'm not sure what I expected--I guess I wanted some rich and original content around thinking about higher education and combining social media with it--but, that's not at all what was there.  I wish all of those companies a lot of luck.  It's clear the only one which is really doing meaningful work for students is Google Apps for Education.