The Newest Niche Market For College Kids: Blogging

A website called The College Answers was launched on October 1st, 2006, which attempts to focus the wide and often disorganized array of blogs into one category just for college kids. The site wants college kids to talk about their lives, what they care about, what they do, because most of this new site’s frustrations grew out of Facebook’s inability to depict what college students actually care about.

“I feel like when you’re confined to entering in a couple tid-bits of information regarding your interests or favorite movies that limits a person’s personal expression. Where Facebook has failed, while succeeding in many other areas, is really making it clear how people feel.” These are the words of Tyrone Schiff, the founder and head of design operations. He is a sophomore at the University of Michigan, and thinks that The College Answers is more than just a blog only for college kids, but can also serve to help incoming college students.

The College Answers is not simply making a profile and adding to it constantly like many other social networks these days. Users sign-up, click on which college they attend, fill the form out with their college answer, and then they are done. Their college answer is categorized within the college they attend. It is unlike most blogs today because of the fact that a user’s entries are submitted individually rather than a string that is in reverse chronological order. “The website is supposed to paint a representative picture of the University that the student attends for an incoming student. One person’s portrayal doesn’t tell the whole story,” further commented Schiff.

This site can be an immense help to incoming college students, because it goes beyond SAT scores and student to professor ratios and goes into the real meat of the college experience. In the August 21st, 2006 edition of Time Magazine, an article was run entitled “Who Needs Harvard?” The article revealed that while the competition for Ivy League schools are higher today than ever, there also seems to be a trend of students opting to go to schools that better fit their personalities, ideals, and lifestyles, rather than going to a school based on its name.

“This is the key component of The College Answers. It is an open source event book from students who attend college all over the country. By reading the stories, people from Los Angeles can get a good sense of what people in New York do, act, and feel regarding things in their lives,” said Schiff. This is obviously an excellent tool that can be employed by future college students. It also stands to teach our younger generation a great deal about how very different and how very similar things around the country are. We have a great deal to learn from one another.

“College kids should submit their own college answer and comment on other people’s experiences, because every single day of a college student’s life is filled with something special and unique. The College Answers just wants to hear about these things, so that students can be the guiding light to future students,” remarked Schiff. The College Answers is devoted to the college experience, and be the “measuring stick of America’s College Community,” as it says on the front page of their website.