At 14 years old, Ashley Qualls created a site to show-off her design work. “I was the dorky girl who was into HTML,” she said in an interview with Fast Company magaine. It attracted zero interest beyond her circle of friends until she figured out how to customize MySpace pages. So many classmates asked her to design theirs that she began posting layouts on her site daily, several at first, then dozens.  The site now recieves 531.1K visitors a month and is making almost $200 a day in adds revenue.

Although Ashley was flattered to be offered $1.5 million and a car of her choice–as long as the price tag wasn’t more than $100,000–she responded, in effect, Whatever. :) “I don’t even have my license yet,” I’m doing what everyone says they want to do, “live like there’s no tomorrow.” –Ashley in her blog, “The Daily Life of a Simple Kind of Gal,” July 1, 2006; 2:43 a.m

“Because Creative Doesn’t Take the Day Off”, Whateverlife.com provides MySpace page designs and attracts a few hundred thousand girls a day. Ashley started the website with $8 and now at age 19, her site grosses more than $1 million a year.  The amazing part is…the website is just downright ugly.  Flashing animation, glittering colors, and a navagation system that will make your head spin.  But hey, Forbes Magazine, Fast Money, and the advertisers beating down Ashley’s virtual door don’t seem to mind. Advertisers are practically drooling over the possibility of reaching a target market demographic of preteen girls who shop at Hollister and read Cosmo magazine.

Whateverlife.com baffles the norms.  A young girl from a working class family graces the pages of the top Entrepreneurial publications in the US with an idea to reach an unmet demand.    A headache of a website with 7 million visitors a year.  Who would have thought?  I wish I would have…

Reid Hoffman

Google “Reid Hoffman” and you might be surprised to discover that not only is he the CEO and founder of LinkedIn, but he is on the Board of Directors for Kiva.org.

Not surprisingly, Hoffman was named as one of the “Top 50 People Who Matter” by CNN Money.  It’s not his undergraduate degree from Stanford, his graduate degree from Oxford, or his Board level position at Mozilla, Facebook, Technorati, and Six Apart that matters the most however.(though a resume like that is sure to weather even the worst economic downturn!) To exactly 449 people across the world, Reid Hoffman is an answer to prayer – empowering them with a small loan to lift themselves and their family out of poverty.

Fazil Khuseinov

One of Hoffman’s first loans was to a man named Fazil Khuseinov from Baku, Azerbaijan.  Fazil is a Displaced Person from the occupied Agdam district of Azerbaijan. He fled to Baku in 1993. He is married, and has two children. He started his business in 2001.  On April 26, 2007, Hoffman loaned Fazil $1,200 (through Kiva) to expand his textile business.  The 12-month loan has been repaid in full, and since then, Hoffman’s generosity has been recycled time and time again.

Reid Hoffman loans because, ” We should approach the future with hope and optimism. Entrepreneurship helps build our future. Help good people; it improves the world.”

Why do you loan? check out www.kiva.org

First Impressions:  LinkedIn is definitely a more professional and older member of the social networking family tree, a well succeeding business man, professional and clean-cut.  Immediately I see the benefits of being involved in this social networking site.

Second Impression:  How legitimate is it for me to add a Nutrition professor from my college back home (I’m pretty sure I’ve never spoken to him)? What about my past positions in companies-how professional does a part-time job as a domestic in a nursing home sound? What about business partners and professional service providers? – I think I may be a few years too early for LinkedIn??

How can a College student use LinkedIn among many different professionals and not feel overwhelmed or simply inferior due to the lack of professional experience?

The Answer: I found on LinkedIn itself, a presentation on the application ‘Slideshare’ that told me 10 things I could do as a student to brand myself as an expert-http://www.slideshare.net/shortdigs/linked-in-for-college-students-presentation

Ø  How to blog your work and work your blog

Ø  How to become a newsmaker

Ø  How to become a published author

These are just three things but all 10 of these tips link you to other application or websites which make these things DO-ABLE.  So despite the feeling of being LinkedIn’s younger more inferior, facebook-loving sibling, we as college students can brand ourselves as experts in some sort of manner.