Today, in the digital world we live in, every individual and every institution needs a digital identity . Amaravian Alumni Association has one of the best identities , our alumni website, amaravian.com. We have a comprehensive database and contact details of fellow-alumni are available literally on your fingertips . Just fire the app on your smart-phone and reach out to any amaravian anywhere in the world. From my own batch 90-95 % are registered.
The website Amarvian.com was launched in 2007 and has gradually built up an exhaustive database on over 5000 alumni , from the initial excel spreadsheet compiled by Capt Vijayasarathi over the years. Technically speaking, it is PHP based, lightweight , having simple user interface and an elegant design. It has withstood the test of time and has maintained the functionality over 13 years.
I know from my experience that it is easier to make a website than to get people to use it, particularly a non-commercial web site with little or no revenues. The simple functionality of emails and forum is amazing. I only wish more people use for routine communication.
We have a simple feature called “Forum” to meet the need for discussions that are stored as a thread. I say simple because it is all text based . I must say, less than 5 percent of our alumni access this part, yet, it is one place where important issues are discussed and the minutes of the discussions are always available for reference. For eg, doing some background research for a short article on functioning of our OBA, I could see the Principal’s letter spelling out the current line of thinking on the issue and the comments from alumni on that letter.
A sad necessity for any community is to keep track of the departed, particularly so for a mature institution . The web site has a feature where any member can make entries; firstly the factual details like date, cause of death and so on. Once the details along with photographs are displayed on the site, any member can pay verbal tributes as comments on the post. A simple way to remember those who have passed on.
Amaravian.com , like most web sites today, has a companion app for mobile devices which is really handy for quick reference on some contact details or photos.
As a technology buff, I have been following the trend closely from newsgroups in the nineties to emails groups and blogs, then social media platforms like Orkut, Facebook,WhatsApp, Instagram and so on. While WhatsApp is clearly the winner today as for usage is concerned, blogs score in durability of contents.
The team working behind the website , have done a wonderful job with selfless dedication , in design and maintenance of the facilty. But there is always a need for enhancements and on the top of my wish list is provision for a multipurpose blog.
For the benefit of people not fully initiated to the bloggers’ world , I include a short note on blogs. Blog is short for Web log , the process of logging into a web site and adding contents. A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. One might put it as what is Test match to a T-20 match would be a Blog to Instagaram. A blog has all bells and whistles unlike a bland text message, but at the same time can give in depth gyan on any subject unlike an Instagram post.
There are wonderful open source CMS (Content management System) like WordPress that has made blogging a cake-walk even for the people not so technically savvy. WordPress was originally created as a blog-publishing system but has evolved to support other types of web content including more traditional mailing lists and forums, media galleries, membership sites and so on. I understand that Amaravian.com also is in the process of introducing a feature for blogging and we can soon look forward to a lot of creativity from the members.
A big Thanks to the team ; in the order of School Seniority , Vijayasarathy N(244), Seetharaman Ganesan (1625), T S Vijaya Kumar (1657), Sundaraeswar Babu (1677) , Mohammed Shaffiudeen (1707), Senthil Shankar (1756) , Damodararaj Kannan (2044) , Muruganandhan (2487) , S Anand Kumar (2968) and A R Sooriyaoli (RollNo: 4490).