Monday, December 25, 2000		Entertainment

Track down college buddies

THE year-end falls this weekend. And the nation would be in a holiday mood. What better way to celebrate the New Year than sending gifts and cards to your long-lost pals through the Web? But how do you find their address.

The Net is being used for many purposes. One of these is meeting old pals on the Net. Sites like www.alumni.net and www.batchmates.com have been designed to get in touch with old buddies. Feel nostalgic about the days spent in college, discuss old flames and tell how it feels after getting married and domesticated.

Batchmates.com has more than 3,75,100 members and the number is growing fast. This year-end the site prompts a user to create a personal interactive picture postcard with photos from her photo gallery to surprise family, friends and foes. Great idea for the festive season!

Naturally, friends who rediscover each other feel ecstatic. Batchmates.com has a box especially marked for such persons who want to thank the site for providing a platform for meeting old pals. "This is simply great! I found out my friend who went missing Bareli ke bazaar mein... Thank you for providing this platform for finding missing but most wanted people who are dear but not near to us." This is what Vijay Malagimani has to say to the site-wallahs.

Currently, the site has only schools and colleges on its rolls. Universities have been left out. All one has to do is sign in as a member, provide his school/college name, its location (country and city) and start searching.

The site also hosts another interesting forum, ABET (Aid Batchmates Education Trust), to help ex-students resume contact with their schools and colleges and, thereafter, help them to further the cause of their alma mater!

Over 1.5 million members and 4000 people are reunited each day. Are you one of them? This is how alumni.net prompts you to join the club. The site allows you to create sub organisations under your college, high school or company. This feature allows more specialised registries and bulletin boards, like fraternity or football team. The site wants the membership to grow and has put up an incentive of US $ 0.50 for every referred sign-up.

This site also carries out interesting poll surveys on habits of its surfers. "If you were to go back in time, would you study harder in high school?" asks the site and requests you to vote for it.

What are you waiting for? Go explore the Net; who knows whom you might bump into!

— Tribune News Service