MyBlotto.com to launch at Duke and Boston University in coming weeks
Sam Epstein, a 2006 Vanderbilt graduate, seeks to provide college students with a useful alternative to Facebook.com with the creation of MyBlotto.com.
Premiering recently at Vanderbilt University and Dartmouth College, MyBlotto is a “non-arrogant, non-Ivy League alternative” to similar sites, Epstein said.
The site will debut within the next two weeks at several other universities, including Duke and Boston University.
MyBlotto allows users to accumulate and network friends similar to Facebook. However, according to Epstein, the site expands on these features by attempting to become “the college student’s ultimate homepage.”
According to Epstein, the most important aspect of MyBlotto is its convenience and utility.
“MyBlotto is not attempting to replace Facebook for looking up information on friends, and I certainly don’t expect people to quit using Facebook, but what MyBlotto offers is usefulness as a perfect way to start your day,” he said.
Aside from offering a list of one’s friends, MyBlotto includes the current weather, a listing of useful Vanderbilt links, CNN daily headline news, a Google search box, classified ads, available housing in the area and a variety of editorials relating to world events and college-related themes.
Each user can opt to customize and rearrange the different features or change the color scheme and patterns on the page.
Epstein said his two goals are to learn how to run a business and to create a Web site that college students can actually use.
“I’m not in this business to use college students or make millions,” he said.
Epstein began his work in Web site creation when he contacted his friend Jamie Coffin, who attended Dartmouth College. Together, the two created the site CollegePostings.com.
Epstein admits that despite the 1,200 students who joined within one month, CollegePostings was not very well done.
“We were in classes and busy,” Epstein said. “CollegePostings was more of a hobby than anything.”
However, after the two friends graduated, they utilized the statistics gathered from CollegePostings and traveled to New York City in hopes of networking and raising money to initiate MyBlotto.com.
I'm a little suspicious:
I'm a little suspicious: "I'm not in this business to use college students or make millions," he said.
I'm going to withhold judgment because I haven't had a chance to communicate with Epstein directly. But the Terms of Service page says the following:
"License. For purposes of clarity, you will retain ownership of any materials you submit through or to your Profile, a Forum, a Group, the Marketplace, or otherwise through the Site (each, a "Submission"). You hereby grant to MyBlotto and its designees a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license, without compensation to you: (a) to use, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works of, transmit, display, perform and otherwise exploit such Submission, in any media now known or hereafter developed, for MyBlotto’s and/or its designees’ business purposes
So while we retain ownership of materials, in the fine print we give MyBlotto the right to use user-generated content however it wants without expectation of compensation.
1) I look forward to a response from the site's creator.
2) I'd like the sites creators to know that until the terms of agreement are ammended, I'm hesitant to post any content on the site. If the site is about function over profit then it will respect the users' intellectual property and at least allow users to opt out of this fine-print clause.