URI students sign onto CampusLIVE

11/6/08 - Looking for the Kingston weather forecast, the RIPTA schedule or the menu at your favorite Emporium restaurant? Then look no further than www.CampusLIVE.com, a new Web site created by college students for college students that now caters to the University of Rhode Island. The site consolidates links from URI students' favorite sites onto one, easy-to-access page.

University of Massachusetts student Boris Revsin started the site in 2006, and it has become what Revsin describes as a "one stop shop" for college students' needs.

As a college student, Revsin, 22, noticed that university Web sites did not make an effort to connect students to local businesses or provide quick links to other sites. The simple Web site was used to "create a stop gap," Revsin said, as a bridge between off-campus and on-campus resources.

The site provides a variety of links to resources for students such as music, movies, television, finances, science and online gaming, to specific links for University of Rhode Island students.

CampusLIVE can link URI students directly to the University Bookstore, University Library, Webmail, E-campus, Dining Services, WebCT and the tech help desk. Other features link students directly to the Cigar, CNN, ESPN and Perez Hilton newsfeeds, as well as a variety of search engines.

From CampusLIVE, students can also access their Facebook pages and private e-mail accounts. Another notable feature collects phone numbers, menus, store hours and coupons from local restaurants. Students can choose if they prefer to order delivery, dine-in or take-out, and are directed to restaurants that meet their needs. Students can also read dining reviews and recommendations from other CampusLIVE users.

CampusLIVE finds these businesses "through the phone book, walking around campuses and talking to business owners," said Ryan Durkin, the director of Business Development and Internships for CampusLIVE.

Though there is a small fee for businesses to have their menus posted, Durkin said, overall the featured businesses are thriving.

The site provides "the most targeted marketing" for businesses possible, and "the power it has to help connect students back to local business is incredible," said Durkin. "[The site] sent hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sales to businesses currently using the CampusLIVE system."

Since 2007 when CampusLIVE was taken nationally, the site has become available at 34 schools.

"We went to where we felt students needed it most,"Revsin said . The targeted schools included many big state schools like UMass, the University of Connecticut, the University of New Hampshire, Boston College and URI, which Revsin considers to be some of the "most important."

Currently, a few thousand URI students are using CampusLIVE. Nationwide, thousands of students log into CampusLIVE each day.

In two weeks, CampusLIVE will be available at about 60 schools, and will boast a variety of new features, including e-mail service, a calendar and a schedule-maker.

This schedule-maker will allow students to register for classes directly through CampusLIVE. The site links students to E-campus, creating a more streamlined process.

The schedule-maker also links students to ratemyprofessor.com, where they can read professor reviews before enrolling in a class.

The widespread success of CampusLIVE is largely due to student recommendations. While the site offers incentives for referrals, such as free T-shirts, shot glasses, iPods and iPhones, Revsin has found that "most students don't want a T-shirt, they just want their friends to know about it."

Student advertising also contributed to CampusLIVE's third place national ranking in "The Best Entrepreneurs of 2008," according to BusinessWeek.

A panel of experts, which included BusinessWeek contributor Richard Branson, Duke University executive-in-residence Vivek Wadhwa and Bo Fishback of the Kauffman Foundation, chose the winners.

The recognition came as a surprise, Revsin said, since "[they] had no idea [that they] were even nominated." Durkin said the nomination has been further fueling CampusLIVE to do even better and has become a constant motivator for the team.

As a thanks to the students who earned them the nomination, CampusLIVE threw parties recognizing students at UMass and UConn. In the future, CampusLIVE is planning a similar event to honor the students at URI.

The team, which consists of a seven-man managing team and 38 interns, plans to offer CampusLIVE to more than 100 colleges nationwide by the end of the semester.