Daily Web page jolts into activity with new employees
Julie Williams
Issue date: 9/21/06 Section: TruLife
Truman State has found a jolter.
The Daily Jolt, an interactive Web site created for students by students, used to be a popular procrastination tool on Truman's campus until losing its readers, bloggers, and most importantly, the students in charge of the site, known as jolters.
The site's status will soon change, however.
For students are unfamiliar with the Web site, the Daily Jolt features resources such as restaurant reviews, current weather, transportation information (such as the La Plata train schedule and taxi companies), as well as links to several Truman sites like the Study Abroad Program and Patty's University Bookstore.
Students also can interact with each other on the Daily Jolt by posting messages in forums and posting their favorite professor quotes. Current happenings, such as concerts in the area and entertainment, such as crossword puzzles also are available.
The Daily Jolt is a nationwide Web site that students can personalize at their college. According to www.dailyjolt.com, the site was developed by two students at Amherst College in Amherst, Mass., during the fall of 1998.
One of their friends at Brown University in Providence, R.I., then picked up on the idea and the Daily Jolt began to spread. Now 95 schools around the country have a personalized Daily Jolt site.
The Daily Jolt site still can be accessed at Truman, but it is noticeably devoid of campus activities, forum postings, poll questions and other signs of life.
Jason Lynn, a sophomore who just signed on as a jolter to update the site, said he was looking online for a new job and saw that the Daily Jolt was in search of a jolter at Truman. He said he is excited to bring the Web site back because it helped him in the past.
"I'd used it before ... and I thought it was really cool, but obviously we haven't had anybody updating it for a little while," Lynn said.
Lynn said he has barely started work on the Daily Jolt, although he has created a new poll and let everyone know that he and his friend sophomore Tyler Menz are now updating the site.
He said he ultimately would like to include more features on the site and do something different than just the standard template. Lynn said he has a lot of ideas about what changes he wants to make, although at this point they remain just ideas in the works.
"The main thing is, I just want to first generate more traffic to the site," Lynn said.
Chris Miller, a Truman alumnus and former jolter, said he thinks the Daily Jolt fell out of the spotlight at Truman because there was nobody to work the site.
"I think all the aspects are there, and I know a lot of their other campuses do very well, especially on the East Coast," he said.
Jolters are a lot like an editor in chief of a newspaper. Mark Miller, director of the Daily Jolt, said they are responsible for doing some writing for the site, moderating the forum, creating editorial content for the news box and getting people to post events. The jolter also recruits other students to work with him or her.
"The great thing about the Daily Jolt is it has all these different elements that were developed over the years in response to what students wanted," Mark Miller said.
Chris Miller said he worked on the Daily Jolt for one semester after a friend of a friend who worked on the site contacted him. He stopped because of other obligations, even though he said it was a paying position.
"It was fun to be involved in something that reaches out to the campus as a whole," he said. "There's a lot of good information in place for students to access."
Most of the content on the Daily Jolt was user driven, Chris Miller said. As a jolter, he said he spent 15 or 30 minutes a day updating the Web site, which consisted of screening students' submissions for objectionable content before posting it on the site.
Mark Miller said the Truman site should be up and live shortly now that two Truman students have control of it.
"It's got a life that's pretty neat in that there's this technology platform that's given to this group of students on each campus," Mark Miller said.
A May 2003 survey revealed that college students spend 270 minutes each week reading the Daily Jolt compared to just 35 minutes each week reading their campus newspaper, according to www.dailyjolt.com. Half the students who use the Daily Jolt have the site as their browser's home page, according to the Web site.
Sidebar: Daily Joly Features
truman.dailyjolt.com
Professor Quotes:
submit funny quotes from professors
Forums: jobs forum
Truman forum
Ride board
Housing board
Restaurant reviews:
Slowly updating
The Daily Jolt, an interactive Web site created for students by students, used to be a popular procrastination tool on Truman's campus until losing its readers, bloggers, and most importantly, the students in charge of the site, known as jolters.
The site's status will soon change, however.
For students are unfamiliar with the Web site, the Daily Jolt features resources such as restaurant reviews, current weather, transportation information (such as the La Plata train schedule and taxi companies), as well as links to several Truman sites like the Study Abroad Program and Patty's University Bookstore.
Students also can interact with each other on the Daily Jolt by posting messages in forums and posting their favorite professor quotes. Current happenings, such as concerts in the area and entertainment, such as crossword puzzles also are available.
The Daily Jolt is a nationwide Web site that students can personalize at their college. According to www.dailyjolt.com, the site was developed by two students at Amherst College in Amherst, Mass., during the fall of 1998.
One of their friends at Brown University in Providence, R.I., then picked up on the idea and the Daily Jolt began to spread. Now 95 schools around the country have a personalized Daily Jolt site.
The Daily Jolt site still can be accessed at Truman, but it is noticeably devoid of campus activities, forum postings, poll questions and other signs of life.
Jason Lynn, a sophomore who just signed on as a jolter to update the site, said he was looking online for a new job and saw that the Daily Jolt was in search of a jolter at Truman. He said he is excited to bring the Web site back because it helped him in the past.
"I'd used it before ... and I thought it was really cool, but obviously we haven't had anybody updating it for a little while," Lynn said.
Lynn said he has barely started work on the Daily Jolt, although he has created a new poll and let everyone know that he and his friend sophomore Tyler Menz are now updating the site.
He said he ultimately would like to include more features on the site and do something different than just the standard template. Lynn said he has a lot of ideas about what changes he wants to make, although at this point they remain just ideas in the works.
"The main thing is, I just want to first generate more traffic to the site," Lynn said.
Chris Miller, a Truman alumnus and former jolter, said he thinks the Daily Jolt fell out of the spotlight at Truman because there was nobody to work the site.
"I think all the aspects are there, and I know a lot of their other campuses do very well, especially on the East Coast," he said.
Jolters are a lot like an editor in chief of a newspaper. Mark Miller, director of the Daily Jolt, said they are responsible for doing some writing for the site, moderating the forum, creating editorial content for the news box and getting people to post events. The jolter also recruits other students to work with him or her.
"The great thing about the Daily Jolt is it has all these different elements that were developed over the years in response to what students wanted," Mark Miller said.
Chris Miller said he worked on the Daily Jolt for one semester after a friend of a friend who worked on the site contacted him. He stopped because of other obligations, even though he said it was a paying position.
"It was fun to be involved in something that reaches out to the campus as a whole," he said. "There's a lot of good information in place for students to access."
Most of the content on the Daily Jolt was user driven, Chris Miller said. As a jolter, he said he spent 15 or 30 minutes a day updating the Web site, which consisted of screening students' submissions for objectionable content before posting it on the site.
Mark Miller said the Truman site should be up and live shortly now that two Truman students have control of it.
"It's got a life that's pretty neat in that there's this technology platform that's given to this group of students on each campus," Mark Miller said.
A May 2003 survey revealed that college students spend 270 minutes each week reading the Daily Jolt compared to just 35 minutes each week reading their campus newspaper, according to www.dailyjolt.com. Half the students who use the Daily Jolt have the site as their browser's home page, according to the Web site.
Sidebar: Daily Joly Features
truman.dailyjolt.com
Professor Quotes:
submit funny quotes from professors
Forums: jobs forum
Truman forum
Ride board
Housing board
Restaurant reviews:
Slowly updating