Trueaggie.com offers classifieds and info
A new, simple way to find off-campus housing, buy and sell books and help out students in other ways has been created – a Web page for student’s needs called www.TrueAggie.com.
And, it’s all free.
“We want to get as many students involved as we can,” said Ryan Malnar, co-creator of the site and a senior studying journalism. The more students who visit and use the site, the more productive it will become.
“You can put anything on the site. Sell books, cars, anything,” Malnar said.
Aggie Books will also be listing all of their books in the classified section so people can see what books are available there, he said. “Students can also buy new or used books from Amazon.”
The Web site offers an atmosphere to buy and sell things, as well as to find housing. It also allows users to easily log on to add or delete their own files in the classifieds.
“One thing we didn’t want to do was to charge money to students,” Malnar said.
Services on the Web site are free to anyone and it can be useful to a lot of people in Cache Valley, Malnar said.
“All I’ve gotten is positive feedback. It shows how big of a need there is [for the Web site],” he said. “Their [students] biggest need is seeing the off-campus housing.”
The site’s operators have compiled a free housing guide they hope to post on both ends of the Taggart Student Center.
“We have 40 different apartment complexes advertising on the site,” Malnar said.
They are trying to find a way to post all of the classifieds on an organized list in the TSC every two weeks .
“In the future the site will allow students it become acquainted with one another through career profiles and resumes, so they’ll be able to see opportunities within their majors. On an academic level, it will be a big resource,” Malnar said.
Despite the sites numerous services, it avoids the need to charge those use it.
“The No. 1 reason why students should use the Web page is because it is free. I know students are worried about that,” Malnar said. “It’s set up for their convenience.”
The site also offers an arcade of games and the high scores of the games are recorded on the Web as well.
Eventually he hopes to have the ability to sell Aggie paraphernalia on the site, but all of that development will take time.
Although, he said technology is tricky and always errors in programming, so far the Web site runs pretty smoothly. They’ve never had a crash.
“As far as helping students to be better informed, I believe it’s a great resource,” Malnar said.
According to Malnar one group that could benefit is the local music scene. The site’s creators would like to be able to list those bands and their performances, and would appreciate if the bands would contact them so they can incorporate the information onto the site.
“We need the help of local artists to give us information and help us promote the site, also the clubs on campus in the same way,” Malnar said.
He noticed a lack of a community site dealing specifically with USU. He created the site to fill this void.
“We started it to be a place for students to get information,” Nolan Malnar, brother of Ryan and the site’s other co-creator, also a USU graduate in mechanical engineering, said. “And we’re going to be adding more and more services.”
Trueaggie.com goes beyond just posting what students send them.
“We go to apartments and take pictures of the apartments offered on the site, so students can actually see where they might be living,” said Brady Dunn, a freshman studying journalism and the financial representative for the site.
Ryan said when he first began school at USU, he moved into a place he knew nothing about because the information about off-campus housing wasn’t available on the Web. The site addresses that problem.
“Ryan does this because he really cares about people and wants to help them out,” Dunn said.
Though Malnar hasn’t studied web page design, he has had a job programming and developing computers since 2000, and it has made a good hobby for him.
Ryan said they started in 2001 by creating “For Sell By Home” magazine that ran for about two years.
“The only problem was the happy customers that were able to sell their home were then moved out of the valley,” Ryan said.
The first guide was made in August 2003 but students weren’t using it very often because it only offered one thing to them.
After a busy two weeks of hard work the Web site was launched on March 15, 2004. Last year the site sponsored candidates for the ASUSU elections and plans to do so for the upcoming election this year.
“Anyone can apply for sponsorship. The candidates interested may contact us through the Web site for interviews that may lead to sponsorship,” Ryan said.
He is also interested in branching out to other areas. The site is currently looking for academic writers to write newsworthy articles to be posted on the site.
“I would just like to encourage everybody to at least give it a try and check out everything it has to offer,” Dunn said.
-amysueh@cc.usu.edu