Two UA alumni created a website to provide students with the most up-to-date information of activities and opportunities in the Tuscaloosa area.
Miles Cobia and Brytney Snow, who graduated in 2010, created connectcrimson.com, which has six categories of information: nightlife, local, food, housing, sports and yoUA.
“We organized a golf tournament for the Student Alumni Association, and we had no way to find the sponsors besides going to Google to find their information,” Cobia said. “We decided to make a website that has all the information right there.”
The couple, who have been dating since their Spain Park High School days, have made the website their full-time job. The two spend their days talking to various businesses around town to find out their specials and going rates.
“A lot of them aren’t tech savvy, so we will do a bar suggestion for a certain day based upon the band they have playing or their drink specials,” Cobia said.
Cobia said their Bar Matrix tab has seen the most success and was one of their first ideas for the website.
“At the beginning of the week we make sure the Bar Matrix is updated,” Snow said. “We compiled the list ourselves, and we have pretty much every bar in town listed.”
Snow said Cobia is responsible for updating their Twitter account, which currently has almost 500 followers. Cobia said Twitter has been a huge success for them.
Connect Crimson also lists almost every restaurant in Tuscaloosa, organized by cuisine and meal.
“We have a Date Night section which is great for freshmen to use when they first arrive in Tuscaloosa,” Snow said.
The food is also divided into breakfast, delivery and an “open now” category, which alerts students about the late night dining options in town.
The housing tab of the website has four categories: apartments and condos, housing matrix, hotels and real estate.
The apartment and condos section lists about 50 locations with a list of the price per bedroom, and a link to their website and phone number is also listed. The housing matrix compares rates and sizes of apartments and complexes.
“We compare a lot of things,” Cobia said. “There are a lot of different housing options in Tuscaloosa and that information takes time to find. We condense the chaos for you.”
Snow said the website sees about 2,000 to 3,000 hits a week from the Tuscaloosa area.
“Our biggest thing is expansion,” she said. “We are close enough to students’ age to know what they want and need. We want feedback from students and we want to engage with them on Facebook and Twitter.”
Cobia said the ultimate goal of Connect Crimson would be to expand to other cities.
“Right now, we are the only two employees but we are looking to expand to other cities,” he said.
The two encourage student engagement, he said. Students are welcome to submit restaurants, bars, sports articles and any other information they would like to see on the website.
For more information about Connect Crimson, e-mail [email protected].
