User:Champ8/sandbox

History
Two University of Louisiana at Lafayette students, Ashton Leblanc, 22 and Selleck Angelle 20 wanted to create a Social network that would combine all the already well known sites that were available to the public today like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but would also include features which they felt would be beneficial to the typical college student. The main feedback that these two Breaux Bridge natives used in the collaboration of their site was the complaints their fellow classmates were making in regards to the social networking sites that already existed. There was also very little press before the launch of this new online site, but it obtained over 13,000 visitors within the first week, and over nine million hits.

New Social Networking Site
In our world today, people of all ages, from middle school kids to grandparents, are connecting through social networks for school work, meeting new people, catching up with old friends or relatives, there is a wide array of reasons why people are using social networking sites. A Social Network is the use of the web for communication and networking needs. Surprisingly, social networking has only developed in a small portion of our population, a majority of the growing middle class and the elite class. The top ten networks have developed the popularity of networking; all other social networks are working to break into the top ten. Leblanc and Angelle lauched their new social networking site on Monday, September 26th, after planning the site out for over three years. KlashNation provides an all in one location to socialize with friends and family, but also to share videos, video chat, and join study groups. Some of the main features include: KlashTube, KlashGroup, and KlashU. KlashTube offers the same features as YouTube and allows the users to upload and share vidoes. KlashGroup allows the interactions of 2-5 people through video chat and messaging. KlashNation also offers a special student section called KlashU which allows for a place to meet classmates and share documents for school.

Site Features
The features of these sites are pretty consistent across the board, but this site was developed to combine the popular features of different sites into one website for users to check. Klash Nation is composed of different features from popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace all put together in one place. Much like other networking sites, users have the ability to create a unique user profile containing information about themselves that they would like to share with other users. On the user profile, users are able to post real time status updates, events, quotes, photos, links, and videos. As a user updates this information, a feed is formed on the profile listing any recent activity from the user such as adding new connections or updating profile information. After signing up and creating a user profile, users are given the ability to use many features within the site. Within the site, each user has a unique "kalendar" that they can create events and invite others users to attend. There is also a feature for blogging, uploading pictures into the “Museum”, and updating personal information such as relationship status, interests, education and professional information, etc. Users are able to “konnect” with other users that they know or share common interests with. Once creating a “konnection” with another user, you are given the ability to become a fan of that person and receive notifications any time that user makes an update to their status or profile.

Klash Nation also has new features that incorporate information from other sites such as YouTube. Within the site, there is a feature called KTube, which is the Klash Nation version of YouTube where users can upload their own videos as well as share some of their favorite videos from YouTube and other websites. Another unique feature found within the site is one called KlashU. This feature allows users to use their .edu email address, where they will then be able to interact with other users from their university and share information such as class notes. This feature is only available to users who possess a current valid school email address. The developers main goal when creating Klash Nation was to combine or "clash" all of the features that everyone loves about different social networking sites, such as the ones you see above, into one single networking site.

Future Plans
With the fact that the site has not been around very long, students from schools all over are learning about the new social network website: Klash Nation. The creators of the site did not overly advertise their creation but did target the early adapters and opinionated leaders of the site to be of the college environment. Friends telling friends about the site is the start for Klash Nation to be spread, that is how the backbone of social networking sites exist, consist of your friends using the same system to communicate. This has been the basis of social networking sites since 1997 when the first site was launched, SixDegrees.com. This site attracted millions of users, it failed to succeed. Klash Nation is just starting out and has a lot of competition with social networking sites, only a select few make the cut to be the top. Statistics show that social networking is here to stay, the top networks are responsible for the industries growth, controlling almost 80%, there is still room for a new social network to compete, Klash Nation plans on competing and becoming a sought out social network for students.

Since the website is still in the beta development stage not all the features are available to the general public. Even though the website currently has over 3,000 users, the final website will not be launched till the Spring of 2012.