I have to agree that using something so public as Facebook might be problematic for the students. There might be unintended consequences for their public persona that you may have difficulty predicting, i.e., what will arrive in their friends' newsfeeds if they change their gender? I also recall a similar (though not exactly the same) situation among some former colleagues in interactive advertising firms. One junior designer had been "requested" to put a beer-related application on his profile because the agency had created it and the beer company was its client. He refused but felt it did hurt him within the agency. He was not completely "on board" or a "team player" because he really didn't want to tell the world he didn't like beer. I have used Ning as well and recommend this as a more closed system, but this won't be as advertising-centric as the method you suggest. There is an interesting game Passive Multiplayer Online Game (PMOG) that creates a "mission" for people to surf through. There is one on online identity that has been used in courses (I have inferrd this from analyzing my own site stats). It might be interesting from an advertising point of view. http://pmog.com/missions/identity_onscreen_and_off_with_howard_rheingold?use...