[hjraji]

Hi guys

I have been working on a Student community website which offers

http://www.studenttogether.com

Jobs
Post CV
Student accommodations
Email large files
Blog section
Online games


I need help with ideas with the following

Population of the

Jobs and Accommodation database
Blogs section
Add more games

I need to do all this before I start sending the traffic.


Help I have been working on this site for a year now and am starting to slow down.

http://www.studenttogether.com

[Frenchiexno1]

So you have been working on the site for a year!
Shouldnt you be seeing lots of traffic, and shouldnt the database etc be fully populated by now,

i gather its difficult to manage marketing and content but I would try to g people coming to the site and ask them to submit the games, content etc, the blog should follow...

Frenchie http://www.buythemap.com

[hjraji]

It taken me a year to build the site I have not done and marketing. I have just graduate so I was studying while it was been built. Now I am ready to start marketing it.

I like your idea of allowing people to submit Games and articles which I will be looking into right away

(is anybody a web developer that that will like to take on this project please PM me so we can disuse your fees)

[akula]

Originally Posted by hjraji

It taken me a year to build the site I have not done and marketing. I have just graduate so I was studying while it was been built. Now I am ready to start marketing it.

I like your idea of allowing people to submit Games and articles which I will be looking into right away

(is anybody a web developer that that will like to take on this project please PM me so we can disuse your fees)

now...don't take this personally,

on the balance of probabilities, I'm guessing you are in trouble.

from the facts above, it sounds like you've lost deal rhythm.

in case you are interested, from my third party perspective; you are making classic (avoidable) mistakes arising out the fact that you don't know what you are doing. my suggestion is to make significant changes - or scuttle this damn thing.

You asked for advice; here it is: a) realise the fact that you're in trouble. this is your first venture so of course you have no idea what you doing b) discuss what are the the kind of common startup problems you are encountering now c) make changes to what you are currently doing and overcome these problems.

[hjraji]

It a bit strong to say am in trouble well I do not think it got that far yet, yes it is my first solo venture.

The site was based on a group work tool I designed well in my final year of university, but I think my time was all wrong I should have waited till I have finished studying to take on such a major project, so the collaborative tool section as been put on hold.

So I turned it into a student community’s site where everything is free for students but I charge landlords and estate agents to adversities property letting and company can post there jobs for a small fee.

I am currently running a free advertising campaign this is to populate the database then when the ball is rolling I will start charging.

I also have search engine which has Google add this is currently bringing in a small amount $ per months which I will be improving to get more $

And finale there is a blog section which i am still working on how to kick start.


So you there is a little more of what is going on with the sit

[bbalfour]

I'll be honest. I don't think there is anything unique about your site. There are plenty of other sites that students can go to, to get part or all of this stuff. It seems to me that you just decided to throw together some random sections that seemed popular to students. Games and jobs?

I applaud your effort and I am sure you learning a lot from the experience. My suggestion is to find a niche, do something a little different, and go after it. I think you would be a lot more succesful then trying to be an aggregator of a bunch of random things.

I hope things work out!

Brian

[jgarifuna]

I think the site looks great and although you are not the first with this concept, it's the marketability that may decide its fate.

I'm working on a community project for my former school (Polytechnic University) with some of the following sections:

Forum

Forums and discussions sectioned out by specific categories
- Announcements
- General discussion
- Life after Poly
- Poly Clubs
o ACM
o IEEE
o NSBE
o Chinese Club
- Employment Opportunities
o Students looking for work
o Employers looking for employees
- Homework Center
o List of tutors
o Homework questions
- Study buddies (Looking for study buddy)
o Math
o Biology
o Lab
o Computer Science
o Other subjects
- Project collaborations
- Ideas

Chat

Live discussion of any topic and occasionally special poly guests


Photos

Students and facilities photos
Events

List of upcoming events

As you can see I have added a forum to my project mix, among other things to encourage the collaboration spirit. Although my main intention is to attract students after they leave the school, I try to provide certain hooks that keep the current students coming back to the site.

In your case, I think that you can take your project in phases by defining what sections you would launch on phase 1,2 3 etc. This way, you can be fully running as soon as possible, without overwhelming yourself by trying to provide everything in the world. On phase 1, you will find that your visitors will normally tell you what is important to them so you can concentrate on those things.

Some students may find the following interesting:
- links to major academic databases, such as Academic Search Elite (EBSCOHost), Business Source Elite (EBSCOHost) and others
- links to libraries that lend books online
- financial literature about credit cards and how to keep them in check
- professional books reviews in different subjects for alternative readings
- how to make extra cash online by simply writing interesting topics for different publications (you can then allow them to publish sample of their work on your site and give them a simple link they can provide to publishers)


Overall, to make this a success, you have to get into the student mode. It would make sense to find out what most students really want to provide them with those specific needs. In general most students are broke, but they can be targeted in masses and if you have the potential to attract them by the masses, advertisers will surely follow. After all it's a numbers game.

I'm currently working on some financial tools which you can test at the following link:

http://www.garisoft.com/atk/admin/

username: administrator
password: demo

The applications incorporate well known formulas taught in economic courses and I would be more than happy to write how some academic theories are being used in the real world to help students control their money better. Most students have a hard time connecting academic theories to real world practices due to the lack of experience and most could probably be helped with practical applications that they can see and relate to.

[hjraji]

Please tell me a little more about the application you are working on and how it can be useful to my site?

[jgarifuna]

The application explores two major areas: Personal Finance and Business finance.

In the Personal Financial area it explores the following:

- When will your money run out?
- Future Value of your Money
- Your Loan's Monthly Payment
- Retirement Planner

With plans to incorporate a personal budgeting component and a debt management/reduction component.

In the Business Finance area it explores the following:

- Product Profitability
* This component calculates the profitability of a product. It also provides the following:
** Unit profit margin
** Overall profit margin
** Break even point in Dollars
** Break even point in Units
** Revenue based on quantity
** Revenue based on desired profit

With plans to incorporate a marketing analysis component, along with a business budgeting and forecasting component.

The subject of money is a real-world phenomenon that every student can relate to. The academic world is great for teaching tools in a complicated way that most students finish schools by merely memorizing the content but with no idea about how to apply the concepts in the real world.

If you can illustrate to students an easy way of connecting the dots, they could probably use your site more and refer it to their friends.

I used to love math in High School, but learned to hate it in college. Not because I did not like it, but because of the way it was taught. For some reason, in college, I could not see how, what I was being taught could be used in my every day life. I’m not sure if I’m the only one the feels that way, but I think if I could have found a way to relate the material to useful real life scenarios, I could have put more interest to learn more at the time.

With these components, students can plug in numbers that they can relate to, see results and can also be exposed to how the numbers came about. In the case of the “Future Value of Money” component, they can be shown the numbers in an amortized way, along with the corresponding values for:
- Present Value (PV)
- Interest per compounding period (i)
- Number of compounding periods (n)

They can get to see this connections per iteration as the formula, FV = PV(1 + i)^n, gets applied to each segment of their money.

Those students interested in starting their own business can easily use the “Product Profitability” component to estimate if their venture would be profitable and the amount of effort they would have to put in to make it successful.

When creating a hook to pull visitors to a site it is very important to have content that the target audience for that site can relate to. One of the advantages of targeting students is that they are normally concentrated in large numbers and if one of them likes something, chances are that he/she will spread it to his/her friends.

For example, I learned about Google for the first time (in the late 90’s) from one of my class-mates and up to this date, I still use Google for 97% of my searches. I learned about Slashdot.org from another one of my class-mates and almost 9 years later, I’m still reading Slashdot daily.

I think that it would work to your benefit to have useful content so that students can visit your site year after year, even when they have left school. If they are moving to a different planet, then you don’t have to worry about them being interested in money, but if they are staying on planet earth, chances are that they will need some tools to manage their money and if your site can introduce them to those tools, it will certainly put you ahead of your competitors.