Editor's Note
WWW.MSUALUM.COM —MSU’S ALUMNI PORTAL
A few years ago, a “portal” typically referred to some elaborate entrance to a church, fortress or medieval university, like Oxford or Cambridge. In August, a web search of the word “portal” using Google found some 364,000 references, the first 100 of which all referred to web sites that groups might use as a homepage and as its main gateway to the Internet.
All Spartans around the globe can now use the MSU Alumni Association’s new “portal” for alumni, students and friends. It’s at http://www.msualum.com and it’s stunning, with Sparty sitting atop the navigation bar. “I hope Spartans will make this their start page,” says Keith Williams, executive director of the MSUAA. “It has all the features you want, including free lifetime email, MSU news and MSU sports, stock quotes, weather, world news from the New York Times and shopping links with discounts. “The portal also serves as the MSU Alumni Association’s homepage, so you get all the information related to our programs, travel tours, the career center, traditional events and the content of the MSU Alumni Magazine.”
The page is swashed in green and white, neatly designed, with lots of options where users can customize exactly what they want in the exact order they want. It was designed by MyPersonal.com, a Silicon Valley firm, and Bryan Murphy, the MSUAA webmaster. “We’re preparing to market this to alumni, students, faculty, friends, and even parents of MSU students,” says Sandy Soifer, MSUAA assistant director. “We expect this to really reconnect our alumni to their alma mater.”
Indeed, one feature of the page will be an alumni registry through which alums can find former classmates, and be found by former MSU friends. It is a completely secure registry where people self-report their emails. “We give complete assurance of privacy,” says Murphy. “The list will never be used or sold for commercial purposes.”
Shopping through the web page will be advantageous, in that users will have a special discount. In addition, a (small) percentage of the commercial revenue from e-commerce will go the the MSUAA to help support worthy MSU causes.
All in all, www.msualum.com will enable all Spartans around the globe to be one click away from most of their needs for information, including information about their alma mater. Installing it as a start page is easy as “click and drag.”
Just as those magnificent portals of quadrangles and churches led medieval citizens into the world of knowledge and religion, the MSUAA portal will lead modern-day Spartan surfers into the vast and exciting world of cyberspace.
