TikTok is launching a new “Campus Hub,” the company told TechCrunch in an email on Thursday. The new hub features dedicated university group chats and personalized feeds designed to help students stay connected to their campus communities, even when they’re away for the summer.
The new center is built on the application campus. verification functionwhich launched last August and allows users to add their college campus to their TikTok profile and browse a list of students from their school to find and connect with others on their campus. The feature is available at more than 6,000 universities through TikTok’s partnership with UNIDAYSa student verification platform that confirms student status.
Once users confirm their student status, they will gain access to their new dedicated campus center.
Students can create and join group chats with up to 300 classmates. These group chats are exclusive to verified students from the same school. TikTok says these chats can be used to stay in touch, plan meetings, or have conversations over the summer.
While these chats could be useful for the summer, TikTok can also aim to have students use its app for daily school communication, such as class or club discussions that typically take place on other platforms like Discord, Facebook Messenger or Instagram.
As for the new university feeds, users will see a personalized feed that displays a mix of content posted by verified students and content related to their university. TikTok says these feeds will allow students to stay connected to campus life, trends and updates from wherever they are.
The new features are reminiscent of Facebook’s early days, when the platform was built entirely around college campuses and required people to sign up with a valid “.edu” email address to connect with classmates and meet people at their university.
It’s worth noting that TikTok isn’t the only social media giant looking to make it easier for college students to connect with each other, as Meta-owned Instagram. released a feature last year That’s almost identical to TikTok’s campus checkout feature, as it also allows students in the US to add their college or university to their profile banner and browse a list of students at their school.
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