Campus plugin, a social networking site for youngsters

Kolkata: With social networking sites catering to people of all age groups, youngsters and students need a space of their own in the cyber world. Now thanks to 'Campus Plugin', young adults can connect with people of their own age group across the country.

Pegged as the "first site that is focussed just on the youth as it is built by the youth", Campus Plugin - brainchild of Sankalp Singha, a fourth-year engineering student of Jalandhar's Lovely Professional University - aims to connect students from as many as 20 universities by February.

"We started out last year and then we noticed the features became really popular. It was initially aimed at connecting students of our campus...but now we have students from other areas and in February, the upgraded version will link more youngsters," Singha, B.Tech Computer Science student, equipped with know-how on advanced computing, told IANS over the phone.

"Countries like China and Japan have their own communities online; so we thought why not do something like that? Social networking sites have become boring with the same features. Ours has got a lot of exciting new features and apps for social interactions and it also has an educational aspect."

For starters, there's the 'Bunky Check' feature that enables registered students to get a good idea about how many classes they can bunk without getting into an unpleasant situation with their teachers.

Then there's the 'CrushList' for lovestruck college-goers.

"If a person has a crush on someone, he or she can send a 'crush message' but the identity of the sender is hidden. When the recipient reciprocates via a message then the identity is revealed," said Singha.

Moreover, if you like or unlike a post, just click 'cool', 'uncool' or 'rocking'.

Other youth-savvy features include 'Random Chat' and 'Shoutbox'. The 'Route Planner' app helps students from different cities plan their trips together to a particular location, thereby making travel cheaper.

"One can spruce up one's resume and also get help with recruitment via some of our other features."

"There are a host of apps for youngsters. We are not competing against other social networks like Facebook. In fact, we prefer to call our endeavour a 'social hub' rather than a network," Singha said.

On board the team are an Android programmer and two core programmers supported by a group involved in promotion.

"By February, we will launch the improved version which will also enable students to download 'Campus Plugin' on to their Android cell phones," explained Singha, who finances the site through the funds derived from web development work on the sidelines.