A social networking site for college students: it’s not a new concept, but it is one that was completely revolutionized by the launch of the social networking site “CollegeTwist”:http://www.collegetwist.com/.

Brandon Forschino and Patrick Daleen, two students at Florida Atlantic University, created the website to provide college students with a central location to find photos, housing and events on campus.

“(It’s) a photo-driven college network that’s different in the sense of a normal social network because you’re not sharing your experiences, and it’s not all about you,” said Daleen, a Business Entrepreneurship major at FAU. Users have only one profile picture and a few sentences to describe them. Unlike other social networking websites, users don’t upload content to their own profile, but to public forums dedicated to the whole university.

Forschino and Daleen came up with the idea for collegetwist.com about two years ago, but it was not until last year that they launched their first version of the website.

“The very beginning was just researching, competition, (looking) at what’s already out there and what’s been done, how we can take what’s been done and turn it into a business plan,” said Forschino, an Architecture major at FAU who now plans to switch into Business Entrepreneurship. Daleen and Forschino then pitched their business plan to Daleen’s father, a successful entrepreneur, who then decided to fund their project.

Since Daleen and Forschino are both still students, they struggle with balancing both school and their startup. Currently, they are trying to focus more on CollegeTwist.

The investment from Daleen’s father gave them the financial backing to hire more employees, such as a Vice President of Technology, a team of developers and a board of advisors. They also obtained the capital to begin expanding CollegeTwist to different universities, which they began this spring semester.

Daleen, who grew up in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, moved back to the Midwest to launch CollegeTwist at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Indiana University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Forschino stayed in Florida, expanding the website to the University of Florida, Florida State University and University of Central Florida, in addition to FAU.

“We decided to expand to schools that were big. You know, traditional, and had their feet on the ground,” Daleen said. “I personally like to see the diverse set of schools … I think that’s really interesting.”

As they began to expand, Forschino and Daleen also began to hire student interns, or Directors of Campus Management. Mia Fikaris, a sophomore in LAS and the director for the University’s campus, found the opportunity out of luck.

“I was just sitting at BIF, and Patrick (Daleen) walked up to me and was just like, ‘are you interested in an internship?’” she said. “I sent him my resume, and the rest is history.”

As the Director of Campus Management, Fikaris spreads the word about CollegeTwist by handing out flyers on the quad, encouraging students to sign up, and planning special marketing events.

Fikaris is also planning competitions to increase involvement on the website.

“We have the Greek life competition where basically all the frats and sororities on campus, whichever adds the most content to the site… will get a cash prize,” Fikaris said.

All of the sororities and fraternities on campus can compete by getting their members to upload the most content onto CollegeTwist. First place will receive a cash prize of $1,000. The second place winner will receive $750, and the third place prize is $500.

Fikaris works closely with Daleen to plan events such as these.

“He doesn’t (know) the culture of the school,” Fikaris said. “So he relies on me for what he thinks will work for this campus, and we just kind of do it together.”

For the future, Fikaris hopes to get promotional deals with restaurants or businesses that will provide gift cards or discounts to users that get involved on CollegeTwist.

Fikaris enjoys CollegeTwist because all the users are contributing to the same pages, photo albums and events.

“It’s like a huge sense of community for the school, where you’re all contributing together,” she said.

One of the most popular features on CollegeTwist is the event calendar, where users can post events on campus for all the students to see.

“I learn about events and I’ve never even heard of the sponsor,” Fikaris said. “So I get to learn more about the school. There isn’t anything like that, where any club can post what’s going on and it’s online for everyone to see.”

Many users also utilize the customizable newsfeed, where individuals can subscribe to updates from certain pages.

CollegeTwist currently hosts about 1,500 users, but Daleen said that number is expected to spike within the next couple of weeks due to new marketing strategies and new website features.

“I can’t disclose too much about what we’re planning,” Daleen said.

However, he mentioned the release of a new Android and iPod app this week, as well as hinting towards a new website feature.