(I'm involved with several student groups on campus.)

Facebook is an amazing tool for getting people out to your events. It doesn't matter if the event is really "public" because the only people who could make it (or that will come) will already be on campus and be invited to the event. (They will see it in news feeds)

So, is it bad that the event data is locked in Facebook? Yes. But, does it matter? No.

For you.

Which is great and fine, no one is saying facebook doesn't serve a lot of needs, but for some events, the current setup doesn't work and for them, it does matter.

Are you implying that all people who are invited to the event have a Facebook account? Do you find it reasonable to require them to have one? Maybe you do, but not everyone does.

I'm not trying to imply that. Yes, I do think it's reasonable to require a Facebook account for college students. We also publicize the events in local papers, flyers, word of mouth, and even our blog. Facebook is the best way to get >85-90% of students who come to come.

You make some good points.. I created a poll "Best site to use to run a public event" to expand upon this topic.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2637986

That's odd. Usually Facebook has public pages for stuff. Maybe they think public events is a bit of an oxymoron, since non-Facebook users can't be marked as attending.

I use meetup.com for just that.

Too bad meetup is pretty pricey for the organizer. The lowest rate is $12/month if you prepay for 6 months.

http://www.meetup.com/help/How-much-are-the-Organizer-Dues-t...