What’s love got to do with it? Well, that all depends on what you hope to get out of it. Welcome to Universitysingles.ca, a Web site developed by university students for university students across Canada. Universitysingles.ca is the brainchild of Parag Shah and Ash Singh, two fourth-year business students at Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.
“There’s a lot of Web sites out there such as lavalife and Match.com, but we feel there’s a need to make one just for students,” said Shah in a telephone interview.
And so they did. Shah and Singh began brainstorming ideas in late spring and early summer of this year. Six months later in October, Universitysingles.ca was launched.
“We threw a launch party in London at the end of October. It was called Nuts and Bolts. We gave the guys bolts and the girls nuts. The idea is for the guys and girls to meet up and screw the parts,” explains Shah.
So far, the site has about 2,000 members and the number is growing. Shah says a lot of the members are from Western, but they are hoping to expand to include U of T, Carleton and other major universities. “80 per cent of our members live in Toronto anyway”, adds Shah.
Universitysingles.ca has many standardized features such as online messaging, forums, personal ads and web mail. It also has a “Hot or Not!” poll where members can rate from one to ten whether a picture of another member is hot or not. Another feature on the site worth checking out is Deals Lockers. It lets members know the good deals and classifieds that are happening, ranging from Chapters coupons and clothing sales to rebates on computers.
Membership is free but students need to be registered and approved in order to browse the site. It is all part of the security measures that Shah and Singh find necessary. Legitimacy of the Web site is very important especially in public online forums. Nobody wants weirdos and whackos looming the site, especially when university students are potential targets. “We personally go through and approve all the people when they sign up. There are features installed on the site so that derogatory words are censored whenever they are detected. As to the pictures, we can’t check if that is in fact what the person looks like. All we can do is make sure that what we receive is 100 per cent good,” explains Shah.
Shah and his friends also produced a show recently, similar to Blind Date, called Mustang Match. It aired on local television networks in London and was well received by university students at Western. “It’s two strangers, university students, going on a date. It’s just like the TV show. The students loved it and there seems to be a demand for it,” says Shah. So much so that Shah and others are thinking of promoting the show by touring. They are hoping to come to Toronto and do a show in February.
So what do Shah and his friends get out of this? “We don’t get any money. The money we get from sponsors, we use it to throw parties like the Nuts and Bolts to promote the site. But we don’t actually make any money. Besides, it looks good on the resume. It’s good reference.” Shah adds, “And it’s fun. It’s just a way for university students to get together and have fun. People often think only geeks go online. We want to change that. You don’t have to go to bars to meet people. Now you can meet people online and have a good time.”
