We are a profitable business, obviously, or we wouldn't still be here, but we also want to give something back to the student body and have some fun

Declan Treacy Student Alive

Launched two years ago and based in Belfast, Student Alive has three full-time and six part-time staff, as well as many student contributors.

Mr Tracey, from Garrison in County Fermanagh, first conceived the site while studying business and computers at university in Wolverhampton.

He said the site now attracts 500,000 page impressions a month, but it was by offering clients the opportunity to market to students both online and on campus that the business really found success.

"We are a very young company and at first people were asking us how long we expected to survive," he told BBC News Online.

"But we managed to persuade them that we were not just another crazy dot.com with unrealistic plans.

"Online we sell banner ads on the site and flash advertising on the Student Alive TV section.

"But we also organise a lot of fresher and sponsored events and offer our clients on-campus product relaunches and e-mail and SMS marketing.

"We have been approached, for example, by some of the big breweries and drinks companies who to target specific drinks at students through mobile phone SMS messages."

The company offers SMS messaging services

Mr Treacy said Student Alive had been able to continue to attract advertising and sponsorship from companies in Northern Ireland, Britain and the Irish Republic, because the site targets a specific and growing group of users.

"We have a prime target audience in the student community, whereas other sites are trying to attract users more generally," he said.

"The 16-25s are the biggest users of the internet because universities and colleges are offering free access 365 days a year."

The company is keeping in touch with student life through its student part-time staff and contributors, he added.

"They are the ones telling us what we should be doing.

"When we came to designing the site we brought in students and fed them a beer and pizza to find what their likes and dislikes were and what they wanted from a portal site."

Mr Treacy added: "We are a profitable business, obviously, or we wouldn't still be here, but we also want to give something back to the student body and have some fun.

"So we are planning to run a series of party nights at students' unions all over Ireland in September, from which the profits will go into student union funds."