Shack Up With a University Alum Orf 401 Final Presentation Kai Ross, Kevin Fan, Mik Breiterman-Loader, David Laslett, Liz Brennan May 12, 2008

Overview Network connecting University students and organizations to alumni and associates Goals: ▫provide students with the ability to find affordable housing for trips from alumni living in their destination spot ▫Fostering relationships between alumni and students, especially among those affiliated with the same sports team, singing group, eating club, organization, etc

Incentive / Motivation Affordability and Comfort ▫Inexpensive for students ▫Trust within the community Alma Mater Goodwill ▫Princeton’s wide-spread school spirit ▫Enthusiasm for returning to campus post graduation  According to the legend, in the '80s, Princeton Reunions ranked second behind only the Indy 500 in total Budweiser beer sales. ( Visibility and Centrality ▫One central and user-friendly site to facilitate trip- planning Unique Niche of Students Students=Clients Alumni=Participants

Business Model Offerings/Value Proposition ▫Network giving students cheap housing, and giving alumnae a way to connect to their alma mater Market Segment ▫Current students, student groups, alumni Revenue Generation ▫Small registration fee for all students ▫Charge students for successful matches ▫Yearly membership fees ▫Advertising on site Scalability and Exhaustive Supply and Demand Added Value ▫Universities are more apt to get more alumni donations because alumnae will have more opportunity to reminisce about their good times at school when current students come to visit. Competitive Strategy ▫Innovative product and environment Mimic Insurance Model without payout to provider

Comparable (Yet Less Cool) Sites Craig’s List ▫Less security and trust – no overarching network ▫Housing is not the main focus of site Couchsurfing.com ▫“seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance and facilitate cultural understanding” ( ▫Liability to host anyone at anytime Facebook Marketplace ▫Sub-part of an entire social network, not the main focus

How It Works: Getting Registered Each school has a central mysql database that stores all information entered by the users Requisite information: ▫Basic registration information for all clients: class year, teams, organizations, clubs ▫Alumni/Associates:  Location, capacity, and basic registration info  Addresses are geocoded using Google’s API to transfer and save the information as a latitude and longitude coordinate in the mysql database This information is transferred to php, where it is then sent to the mysql database, and stored for future searches

How It Works: Searching for Housing Students make a search query for the location (address or zip code) and radius they would like to travel to Our site returns a list and map of the host addresses that fit the criteria Students are able to filter results ▫ by group/team/organization, distance from desired location, occupancy, graduation year, etc.

How the Search Works Using Google’s geocoding API, our site transfers the location into a longitude and longitude coordinate First a box is created that will cover the given radius to limit the Haversine calculations which is taxing for the server Using the Haversine formula we calculate distances to this location from given coordinates in our database Then we search through the mysql database to find all hosts within the calculated target range The results are returned as markers on a Google map and in a filterable table that has links to the details of each host

Google Maps API Optimized server performance using bounding box before haversine formula The results are filterable by distance, occupancy, etc. through mysql commands Google geocoding limits not applicable due to setup of requests

Messaging System Allows communication without unnecessary information release. Alumni can accept or reject a request. Students send a message through our messaging system to the Alumni found on the search page requesting housing. At that time, payment would be enforced (not in current working model), and alumni contact information would be released to the student.

Future of the Site Expand to create more University networks Add a newsfeed to update users when new alumni are added or when current alumni profiles are changed ▫Different dates alums are able to host Expand Google maps to include nearby businesses Advertising revenue