[TekTeen]

Hey everyone:

please visit my new site at www.genynow.com Myself and a friend just started it, it's aimed at young adults (18-25) but high schoolers are fine to use it. It's pretty much aimed at educating college students on the issues important to them so we can rally behind certain causes, such as fighting rising tuition rates, etc. but also allowing members to send in their own content to be on the site, such as essays, poetry, pics, etc..

So if you have any content please let me know and thanks!

peace,

Josh M.
Co-Ceo
Gen-Y
www.genynow.com
geny@genynow.com

[Bored]

Really cool.

So one reason your business is made is to educate college students and eventually use the strength in numbers to "rally" against certain issues. I am guessing you would need A LOT of active college students on your website to do that.

How do you plan to market your website?

I am just wondering because the only websites I know of that attract a lot of college students involves videos of people doing stupid stuff.

[TekTeen]

You got the point of GEN Y perfectly! Firstly, we plan to market GEN Y to our immediate friends, facebook ppl/myspace, pretty much any college kids we have contact with. Secondly, we hope to use buzz and word-of-mouth from those groups to reach their friends, thirdly we have been posting on a lot of college/youth sites trying to recruit ppl and spread around what GEN Y is all about. Eventually, we hope to tour college campuses and get sponsors on board.

There are some popular sites out there like facebook and xuqa that are doing well. Mainly because they allow students to communicate all the time w/ friends and allow for the exchanging of messeges and what not, so we hope to follow that proven model

Peace,

Josh M.
Co-Ceo Gen Y
www.genynow.com

[Bored]

sounds good.

Your plans on marketing sounds theoretically successful (using some proven techniques and all). However, I still cannot see students really engaged in present day issues. A lot of college students like their lives isolated from world events. They prefer to use their time in college for self-development, independence, and experimentation. Again, this is not all, but most.

I would think that you should come up with some fancy creative gimmicks to your business.

[TekTeen]

One of the things we learned from talking to friends and strangers is that its not that college kids don't care about the issues, its mainly that they have no one resource that's there for them or easy enough to understand..yea we can watch CNN all day or read the NYT, but many students are just confused or too busy, so we figured by having GEN Y (an online portal of sorts) and making it a source for all the important stuff aimed at our generation then it'd be more of an incentive for college students to just look at the site whenever they had time and caught up on what's goin on as well as add their own two cents.

Also, we plan to create a discount card program for college students who join and stay involved so they can save at places like foot locker, A&F, FYE, etc..

So, yes we're thinking of other creative marketing techniques as well and we have a group of former business execs. who pitch in ideas as well.

peace,

Josh M.
Co-CEO Gen Y
www.genynow.com

[Bored]

It definitely sounds like it will succeed.

I am not sure that the reason students do not keep in touch with issues is because of the reason you have stated. I think it is more because it does not affect us and thus we do not care. I was just talking about this with my friend the other day. California elections are coming up soon and we were thinking about voting. My friend just said "na, I am just not gonna do it." Then I asked why and he said that it simply doesn't affect him. Why would we care if prop 71 passes or not.

My example is not limited to politics. When we are in college we are self-developing. What most of us care about is our grades and the social scene. Something like "Korea suspected of nuclear weapons" just doesn't grab our interest.

Where I get most of my news (like a lot of Americans) is from The Daily Show. Partially because it is funny and it keeps me interested.

One reason I don't like to read the newspaper or watch CNN all day is because it is only bad stuff. The press is searching for bad things to report on because they believe that’s what people want to read. I honestly do not care if there was a homicide 50 miles from my home. Dangers like that are always there, I cannot live my life paranoid.

I think it would be cool if you had good news on your website and maybe some funny stuff.

[akula]

Originally Posted by TekTeen

So, yes we're thinking of other creative marketing techniques as well and we have a group of former business execs. who pitch in ideas as well.

Josh,

Yep, to quickly grow your community, you could do something like what the Go Big Network has done with their online community.

Most of your community members at GenYnow would have blogs or personal websites (FaceBook, Myspace etc). If they don't, they should get one. You can set up a widget like the one here: https://www.gobignetwork.com/blog/GetWidget.aspx

The widget displays the latest posts made on blogs in the community. You can see an example displayed here: http://www.ventureweek.com/ (scroll down to see the GoBigNetwork widget)

This way, everybody in the GenYnow community, who has a blog, can easy see and display all the latest posts from all the other blogs in the community- on their own blog. So when people visit this persons blog, they will see that it's a part of GenYnow, add their blog and the community grows.

Technically, to make this happen, you just need to set up an account with Feeddigest.com, create a master feed of all the blogs written by GenYnow members, and then share the Javascript code generated by FeedDigest with who ever wants it, so they can display the latest posts in this master feed, on their blog.

You can also do cool community stuff with ning.com

Good luck

[TekTeen]

Hey Bored:

The reason I created GEN Y was to have news that matters to our age group and to explain it in a way that it does matter. Because a lot of things do matter to our age group, we just don't tend to know about them or know where to get the info at. In my classes, when the profressor announces something that has an affect on our age group, students are always like WHOA I didn't know that! A lot of research has back this reason for why students don't get involved and don't care much about politics. We just don't always understand them or see why they matter to us, and of course politicians don't care to shape them around us, because we don't have a mass group of members to protest and lobby, like the AARP and other groups.

I'm pretty busy myself..i'm in a frat, im a chair on the student programming board, and so much more so I go through the same thing where I just don't have the time to read up on everything and to research what really matters.

Also one of the things on the GEN Y site I write is that we want to have good news, mainly from YOU, members, stuff that's going on positive in your community, your life!

I love the daily show and funny news, and that's for sure something we'll have, hopefully we can find some writers who specialize in comedy writing.



ALSO thanks Akula for all the ideas and links, those will be awesome!

peace,

JOsh M.
Co-Ceo Gen Y
www.genynow.com

[kotor]

As an 05 college grad I feel like I have some authority on the subject. First of all, I don't like your website. It's too flashy and takes too long to load. Keep it Simple! Especially at first. look at the main page of facebook. its so simple! no clutter, no flashy pictures. Just easy on the eyes and easy to navigate. Students want info now, they don't want to wait for your flash videos to load. Long load times will just make them hit the X button.

Aside from the website, I like the idea of what you are doing, just not sure it will work. Our generation is very tricky and confusing.

If I were you I would focus more on creating a forum for discussing important issues, instead of providing a site for people to read about issues. I think you are wrong way you say too many students are confused or too busy. I was never busy in college. I had all the free web surfing time I wanted.

Just post some of the issues and the news coming out about it (like increase tuition in Florida) or something, then have a discussion board opened up to debate that topic.

You could have a petition section to for students to sign petitions.

Is it just me or does your site run slow for everyone?

[TekTeen]

Hey Kotor:
Thanks for the suggestions! WE change the site design and what not pretty much everyday. We're trying new things based on what a lot of ppl r saying.

I love the simplicity of facebook and that's for sure what most young ppl like, but facebook has really no substance to it, aside from add a freind and wall post.. so I think GEN Y will have to have some clutter to it.

THe site loads pretty fast, you r the first to say it's slow..I'll ask around and see how its loading for other ppl. These free domains don't always perform well.

We have a discussion board, but not built within the site. Because the company we're using doesn't have that option. IN about a month we will be getting a new host, so that should be added feature.

We r following the success of other sites such as www.youthnoise.com, so there is an audience and market for these type of sites.

Thanks for your suggestions,

PEace,

JOsh M.
www.genynow.com