Student-run site overshadowed by other online media
By NATE PHILLIPS
News Writer
Largely unknown to the Notre Dame student body, the University-sanctioned Web site Planet Irish may be a diamond in the rough. Deeply shadowed by such prominent sites as NDToday and the Notre Dame homepage, PlanetIrish.com serves as a student-run online community that offers many links and resources.
"We, as the students, built the site and keep it up and running," said student manager Kevin Campbell.
Proposed in November 1998, Planet Irish serves as a pet project for the on-campus Dome Designs. "The idea of an online community was getting big, and we thought it would be a good idea to jump aboard," said Campbell.
"We thought it would be cool to have a weekly campus calendar, message boards, class and extracurricular information," said assistant manager Matt Wilkerson.
Campbell, a senior, has been with Planet Irish since its conception. He helped present the idea to the administration, and asked for school funding for the project. It took two years for the administration to grant its approval of the site, and even then, they still neglected to provide it with any monetary support.
"We really wanted the school to not only endorse us, but also to fund us," said Campbell. "Unfortunately, we did not end up getting that."
In order to fund the Planet Irish project, Dome Designs opened the site to advertisements from a plethora of restaurants and other local establishments. The site also offers the screen times for all of the local movie theaters, hotel and taxi information, and details about a number of local churches.
"Restaurants pay us to put their menus on the site," said Campbell. "It provided us money that helped us develop it, considering we really have limited funds. Frankly, I think it's a real asset to the site and to the students."
"We put in the menu of nearly every restaurant in the area, page for page," said Wilkerson. "It's just a really awesome resource for everyone at Notre Dame."
Despite not having school funding, the site does have official University backing, unlike other sites like NDToday. This is a major advantage for the site; they are able to use any of Notre Dame's resources.
"Having official backing by the University allows us the opportunity to use Notre Dame trademarks, and it gives us resources through the OIT and the web administration that we can tap into," said Campbell.
The site posts official University links to the Notre Dame phone book, IrishLink, Webmail and the official University calendar.
"Planet Irish is a faster way for students to access important Notre Dame information," said Wilkerson. "The key is speed. We don't have a lot of cosmetic details; we just bring students what they really want to see."
On top of the academic resources and local information, the site offers a link to the Chicago Tribune and to the Observer for up-to-date news coverage, a local weather forecast, and a "ND book bag" which provides students an alternative way of selling their books.
"We wanted to provide a venue for students to place their books on sale in order to escape the rip-offs from the bookstore," said Wilkerson. "The website offers much more than just an ordinary academic resource."
The site also offers 30 different online games, message boards for students to communicate to each other, and a driver-rider board. The driver-rider board provides students a place to request rides to or from Notre Dame.
"It's all about responding to the students' needs, without making them hunt for it, "said Wilkerson.
Although the site is just beginning to take off, there is still quite a bit of work that needs to be done. Wilkerson and Campbell have set their sights high, and to them, the sky is the limit for Planet Irish.
"We want to provide a place for all student to come together as an online community," said Wilkerson.
"We want it to grow, and to be a place where students can go hang out online," said Campbell. "We want Planet Irish to not only be a resource for Notre Dame students, but also a place for them to come together."
All News Stories for Thursday, February 15, 2001
