[July 01, 2011] FAU students launch collegiate social networking site Tweet Jun 12, 2011 (The Miami Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Social networking is going collegiate. Two students at Florida Atlantic University have created a new social network site that defies the randomness of Facebook news feeds and gives prospective students a hefty dose of reality. Upcoming juniors Brandon Forschino and Patrick Daleen have created CollegeTwist.com, a website designed to provide students with information, pictures and videos of their college. "You can go onto university websites or other sites that claim to have the view of a college student, but they beautify their words and images," Daleen said. "We want to show real pictures of a college student's life in a way that shows the most truth." No more professionally taken photos of students smiling on library steps or well-groomed roommates studying in spacious and clean dorm rooms. Rather, the site will feature students' photos, he said, providing a "real" view into college life -- messy dorm rooms included. He said Forschino is the brainchild of the project, but the two melded their ideas when they were looking for pictures of on-campus housing and could find only blueprints of room layouts. Although they thought to target high school students initially, they morphed the website into one that would attract both prospective and current students. CollegeTwist will have a page for each aspect of the school, including housing, Greek life, sports and clubs, and each page will have photos, a discussion board and event calendar. Students will be able to "like" certain pages, which will then appear in their homepage dashboard. The events on the pages a person follows will also be transferred to the student's personal calendar. "You get to see what you want to see," Forschino said. The idea is to get students connected with the happenings in their college and with people who share the same interests. People will be able to upload their own photos and tag the respective activity so it shows up on that page. They will also be able to leave comments under pictures and events. Forschino said their focus is currently on FAU, but they hope to expand the site to cover numerous colleges across the country. Each school's content will be managed by a campus representative. The site will open officially Aug. 1. Daleen said they plan to continue managing the site after graduation. "I don't think I'll ever let go of this idea," he said. "It's our baby." To see more of The Miami Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.herald.com. Copyright (c) 2011, The Miami Herald Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]