Unigo
Encyclopedia
Unigo is a free online
ONLINE
ONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....

 college resource guide and student platform claiming to cover more than 1,600 colleges and universities in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The Unigo website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...

 is used by college students to share photos, videos, documents, and reviews of their school. High school students and parents use the site as a research tool to explore college options. Unigo's main purpose is to create a student-generated online college guide that does not have the limitations that its print counterparts do. This allows college students to update information about their school on a continuous basis and cover topics not found in traditional guidebooks. Student-submitted photos and videos allow users to see what Carnegie Mellon's newspaper, The Tartan
The Tartan
The Tartan, formerly known as The Carnegie Tartan, is the original student newspaper of Carnegie Mellon University. Publishing since 1906, it is one of Carnegie Mellon's largest and oldest student organizations. It currently has over 170 student members, who contribute on a weekly basis...

,
described as "a virtual campus visit."

Company

The company was launched in the fall of 2008 by an editorial team of 18 recent college graduates. Unigo is the brainchild of Jordan Goldman
Jordan Goldman
Jordan Goldman is an American businessman best known as the founder chief executive officer of Unigo. The son of a veteran public school teacher, Jordan's mission has been to make higher education more accessible to the millions of students who apply to universities each year. He was named "One of...

, a 2004 graduate of Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 who came up with the idea after publishing a bestselling college guidebook, The Students’ Guide to Colleges, while he was a student. Goldman was inspired to create a student-generated college guide after his own college admissions process was examined by New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg
Jacques Steinberg
Jacques P. Steinberg is an American journalist and author who covers the media, primarily television, for The New York Times cultural news desk....

 for a nonfiction book on higher education called The Gatekeepers
The Gatekeepers
The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College is a 2002 nonfiction book written by education reporter Jacques Steinberg that examines the inner workings of admissions committees at prestigious colleges and universities in the United States and addresses the changing face of...

.

Financial Backing

Two of Unigo's notable backers include Frank Sica, the director of Northstar Realty and Carl Hamann, co-founder of ConsumerSearch
ConsumerSearch
ConsumerSearch is an English-language search engine for consumer product reviews, plus a database of reports on consumer products and services, published and updated only online. ConsumerSearch does not review products and services directly, nor does the site publish reviews from users...

. After going live, Unigo hit 1.35 million page views in its first week.

Notability

  • 2008 - Unigo was named one of the "24 Most Underrated Websites of 2008" by Mashable
    Mashable
    Mashable is an American news website and Internet news blog founded by Pete Cashmore. The website's primary focus is social media news, but also covers news and developments in mobile, entertainment, online video, business, web development, technology, memes and gadgets...

     and Forbes
    Forbes
    Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

    put creator Jordan Goldman
    Jordan Goldman
    Jordan Goldman is an American businessman best known as the founder chief executive officer of Unigo. The son of a veteran public school teacher, Jordan's mission has been to make higher education more accessible to the millions of students who apply to universities each year. He was named "One of...

     on its "Watch List" for 2009.
  • 2009 - The Wall Street Journal
    The Wall Street Journal
    The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

     described Unigo as "a college-information resource built for the age of YouTube and Facebook." The WSJ further noted: "[T]he site seems to have struck a good balance between the immediacy and candor of student submissions, and the professionalism needed to weed out wildly biased or inaccurate claims."
  • 2009 - Business Insider
    Business Insider
    Business Insider is a U.S. business/entertainment news website launched in February 2009. Founded by DoubleClick Founder and former C.E.O. Kevin P. Ryan it is the overarching brand beneath which fall the Silicon Alley Insider and Clusterstock verticals...

     names CEO, Jordan Goldman
    Jordan Goldman
    Jordan Goldman is an American businessman best known as the founder chief executive officer of Unigo. The son of a veteran public school teacher, Jordan's mission has been to make higher education more accessible to the millions of students who apply to universities each year. He was named "One of...

     one of the years 100 most influential people.
  • 2011 - CEO, Jordan Goldman
    Jordan Goldman
    Jordan Goldman is an American businessman best known as the founder chief executive officer of Unigo. The son of a veteran public school teacher, Jordan's mission has been to make higher education more accessible to the millions of students who apply to universities each year. He was named "One of...

     named Inc. Magazine's as "30 Under 30" recipient.
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