Virtual Communities
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A community for students, by students
Purdue online is a virtual community that provides information on all topics relevant to Purdue students and offers a forum for students to interact and discuss these topics with others. It's a student-run outfit and is the brainchild of Brent Meshier, a Purdue Graduate. He and his development team got the site up and running in the Spring of 2000 and since then its growth has attained unstoppable momentum.
It has a lot of useful tools and interesting features ("fun-stuff") that includes a drink-guide, photo galleries, webcams and a cupid service called "The Krush". The Krush lets you enter the email addresses of up to five people and they all receive anonymous emails asking them to go through the same process. If there's a match, both people get notified. However, since you get to enter up to five people, you usually get a big chain going. There's also a poll section where topics vary from 'your favorite deadly sin' and 'the college you hate the most' to 'your vote for President'. Other helpful local information consists of apartment reviews, the classifieds, a dining guide, movie showtimes and the local weather update. Finally, there's a link that lets you check your Purdue email (in the early days they had their own email client, but there were some issues with security)...