Please visit http://www.CollegeClassifieds.com for all of your College Classifieds needs.
October 15, 2006
What is ‘net neutrality’ and why you should defend it
DormItem.com: Free College Classifieds
“Net Neutrality” is basically the freedom of speech for the internet. It means that large companies and internet service providers -ISPs (such as AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast) cannot control what sites people can view and the capabilities of the pages that you view.
For example, a large ISP may have an investment or contract with a corporate website. To ensure that their investment receive web traffic, they can make sure that their customers all go to the corporate site faster and easier than a small startup site.
Why is this important to understand?
Some of your favorite sites, whether they are small blogs or college student startups, will be forcefully overrun by the controlling power of the ISP. By keeping the internet neutral, it ensures that all sites receive equal treatment from internet providers. This makes the internet a free market and lets the best win, rather than the big corporate sites taking control of our communal webspace.
What can you do?
The big ISPs are lobbying congress to eliminate net neutrality. They have already filed a statement of intent to do so, and congress is considering revising the telecommunications act to benefit these big lobbyists. This will hurt small businesses and people like you who use the internet for finding the best prices, the best information, and learn new things that aren’t controlled by the top, but rather created by individuals. It is important to be aware of your politicians stance on net neutrality, and demand that they understand what exactly net neutrality is.
You can read more about net neutrality here, and sign the petition.
October 8, 2006
DormItem partners with Rapleaf!
DormItem.com: Free College Classifieds
Some of you may have noticed that “rapleaf reputation” graphic in each post. This is a new feature we added to DormItem to increase trust between buyers and sellers. Rapleaf is an open feedback system for across the web, and it allows anyone to rate a person’s email address based on interactions that they have had across the web. DormItem partnered with Rapleaf to power our feedback system, and to increase safety for college students who are transacting on campus.
Rapleaf gives sellers who post with a .edu email address more trust than other email domains. This is an advantage to students, whose integrity automatically increases when they use their school email. Not only are seller’s Rapleaf ratings visible in their listing, but when a user contact’s a seller, that user’s Rapleaf rating is visible in their email. We hope that with the addition of Rapleaf feedback, users will be more inclined to find buyers and sellers they trust, along with providing Rapleaf feedback to those users.
What is Rapleaf? (fom their site Rapleaf.com )
RapLeaf is a portable ratings system for commerce. We allow buyers and sellers to rate one another. Get rated and get a RapLeaf score that will help lead to a greater level of trust.
Rapleaf has been featured on Techcrunch
and is based in San Francisco. Thanks to Auren, one of the company’s founders, who has been a great help in creating the feature for us to integrate it with DormItem.
If you haven’t signed up for a Rapleaf account, you can do so here. By signing up, your reputation becomes positive automatically.
October 4, 2006
Some “Web 2.0″ sites of interest to college students
DormItem.com: Free College Classifieds
Browsing the internet over the last few weeks, we have compiled of a list of sites that many of you college students may not know about. And then we filtered those millions of sites down into a few places that are actually relevant to college life. Here are some.
Costumzee
Costume ideas and community. A great site to find your perfect halloween costume this year.
Line Rider
Possibly the best bored game on the net. Draw a line, draw a course, and watch this biker crash around on it.
Dodgeball
Mobile social software. Use your phone to send multi-person text messages, locate your friends, meet crushes, and find venue locations.
SinkMyShip
This is an AJAX-based online battleship game. Easy to play, fun, and great to use in class.
Digg
Possible the best social news site. Submit an article. Like it? Digg it and help it make the front page.
Ok, so there are some. (But we know more!) Feel free to submit any sites that you know of.
September 28, 2006
Don’t get ripped off at the bookstore!
DormItem.com: Free College Classifieds
Come textbook purchasing time, many students dread the damage they are about to see to their bank account. You’re paying $40 grand a year for college, and its no fun to have to spend around $500 on textbooks! That money can be better used for parties, concerts, and real books.
So here are some tips on maximizing DormItem.com’s service to buy and sell used textbooks.
1. Post them! The biggest mistake you can make is just by not posting the textbook. Free listings, so you have nothing to lose there.
2. Find out how much the bookstore is selling for or how much they are buying back for. Adjust accordingly. Remember, sell for less than the bookstore but more than they will pay to buy the book back.
3. In your listing title, make sure to say “textbook” and the course subject you used it for. Also, consider putting your course name into the listing title.
4. In your listing, provide a picture, the class you used it for (course ID number if possible), and the professor you had. This allows students who are taking the same class in the next semester to identify the book.
5. Don’t be scared to buy old editions! The content is usually the same or close to the same. Not that we recommend this always, but do some research to find out what is different about the old edition. Most often, not much.
So thats it! Be frugal, and be smart. Find kids at your school who are older and took your classes, and get books cheap! Also, you deserve more than 1/10 of what you paid for at the bookstore. Sell for more!
August 25, 2006
DormItem.com announces the launch of Free College Classifieds!
DormItem.com: Free College Classifieds!
DormItem.com announces the launch of new “one-page” college classifieds
For Immediate Release
WELLESLEY, MA – College students now have an answer to buying and selling used dorm goods–Free College Classifieds Online! DormItem.com allows college student to post products for free that they need to sell, and interested buyers can browse listings easily through AJAX search features and tag cloud categorization.
According to the DormItem.com staff, the “DormPeople”, the site is unique because it offers scalable content that is easily sorted and browsed all on one page. Anyone can go on the site and submit a listing without much red tape, and once the listing is posted, users can find what they want through simple search.
The bold colors of the site make DormItem.com both a fun and useful way for college students to promote their items for sale. When a user wants to contact a seller, all they need to do is enter their message in a simple contact box which will get emailed to the seller. DormItem.com protects emails and keeps sellers anonymous. The service plans to bring Web 2.0 to the forefront of the college community with new web technologies such as AJAX, RSS, and tagging. Of course, the Web 2.0 site wouldn’t be complete without the DormItem blog, where users can read about new features and suggestions as to how to best use DormItem.com.
For advertisers, DormItem.com offers campus businesses and companies that market to college students a chance to purchase ad spots on the site through third party software. All in all, DormItem.com has created a great way to easily connect buyers, sellers, and advertisers together on one web page by using Web 2.0 philosophy and technology.
August 16, 2006
3 Good Reasons to Use DormItem.com
DormItem.com: Free College Classifieds
Lately, we have been asking our users to give us feedback and comments as to what features they like on DormItem.com and why. One of the popular observations was how different DormItem.com is from other college classifieds sites. Below are the top 3 reasons users buy and sell their college stuff at DormItem.com:
1. The site is easy to search with AJAX technology, which means less clicking and searching through obscure categories. All you have to do is type in what you are searching for and the classifieds are sorted as you type!
2. Its everything you could ever want in terms of simplicity and value (all listings are free!).
3. The site focuses on giving student businesses and campus stores a chance to reach the college market through our ad serving campaigns.
So keep using dormitem.com and keep us improving the service!
*Thanks to all users who provided us feedback over the past few days.
