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Austin Leshay and Alex Pattis; Creating the Convenience for UA

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Jessica Cooper
Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Yael Schusterman
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Arizona chapter.

Name: Alex Pattis (Left)
Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA
Year: Senior
Major: Communications; Minor: Sports Management

Name: Austin Leshay (Right)
Hometown: Chicago, IL
Year: Junior
Major: Communications; Minor: Pre-Law
 
HC: What is zonahomepage.com?
Austin:Really it just began as a homepage, as a resource to links such as academic sites, social networking, and a variety of other popular sites (Google, YouTube ect.) all in one. 
Alex:The site began really basic, we wanted to create convenience for UA students. We wanted everyone to have one central site that was fun and entertaining as well as resourceful.
 
HC: How did you come up with this idea?
Austin:A good friend of mine, Tyler Rustin at the University of Iowa, started mycollegehomepage.com, it spread so quickly all over his school that when he contacted me we decided to make a page of UA. It branched out to U of A in the early stages. I knew that Pattis would be the best for the job when it came to all the promotion and publicity so he joined us in launching the UA branch.
 
HC: How successful has it been thus far?
Austin:We are able to constantly check the analytics of the site and see which links are most popular. In just the first few months we were getting a few thousand clicks a day.
Alex:We are constantly coming up with new ideas bringing new hits to the site. We have really skyrocketed in just the first few months.
 
HC: Do you have any endorsers?
Austin:There is a development company that franchises and supports the web site but when it comes to promotion we mostly look to prominent social people around campus.
Alex:It’s all about meeting new people and creating our own social network. Many students like The “Hype Guy” Dylan Landon (previous campus celebrity) have helped out with getting our name and site out there.
 
HC: What are your goals for this webpage?
Austin & Alex:We would love for the same success to happen at all the PAC-10 schools and make the site as popular as possible. It would be awesome to see the site get so big that the school (U of Arizona) recognizes the site and begins to promote it themselves. “Zonahomepage is all about doing it for you [the students]” said Pattis.
 
Austin and Alex, commonly known as Leshay and Pattis, have taken the UA by storm with their new and improved homepage created solely for you. With any link you could possibly need all on one homepage, the convenience is immeasurable. With the help of four interns this site is continuously thriving. Just click this link below and  you won’t regret it www.zonahomepage.com

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My name is Jessica Cooper and in the Fall I will be a Senior at the University of Arizona. I am majoring in journalism with a dual minor in history and judaic studies. My focus is in both print and online journalism. I have loved being a part of the Her Campus team for the last semester and am so excited to be the campus correspondant for the 2011-2012 year.
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Yael Schusterman is a journalism senior at the University of Arizona. She has freelanced for half a dozen publications and is ready to transition from a print to an online focus. She maintains a permanent residence in New Jersey and her goal is to live in Manhattan. The AP wire has picked up one of her stories, "Theft at gallery yields sale to help artists," as member enterprise while working for The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. She looks forward to working with the Her Campus Team and spreading awareness on the UA campus.