The Bluffton Icon begins a collaboration today with BlufftonConnection.com of Bluffton University. The venture greatly expands the news, features, photos and videos capabilities for both popular Internet sites.

This collaboration has been in the making for two years, and both online news sources are excited to see it finally coming together.

To assist Icon viewers' navigation of BlufftonConnection.com, a user guide is attached at the bottom of this story.

BlufftonConnection.com is the student-driven news source for students and faculty on the university campus. Its main goal is to inform the community of campus events, news, sports and Bluffton University people. BlufftonConnection.com also offers live streaming of Bluffton University's student-driven radio station, WBWH.

WBWH allows for live coverage of sporting events, music events, and additional happenings on campus. Students also have the opportunity to gain the experience of running their own radio show, and those shows can be heard by clicking on the "live streaming" link on the right-hand side of BlufftonConnection.com.

Dan Fultz, faculty advisor for both WBWH and BlufftonConnection.com, said he is excited about the collaboration, and that the "hyper local online approach that Fred and Mary Pannabecker Steiner started with The Icon is the direction that most of the industry is headed."

Fultz also said that collaborating with the Bluffton Icon would bring more viewers to BlufftonConnection.com. He said he's "impressed with the work that students are doing in this emerging news environment."

All the articles, videos, and photos posted on BlufftonConnection.com are student produced. "This generation of students has grown up with technology, and it's been cool to see their vision for an online news source come to fruition," Fultz said.

Kristen Corney, BlufftonConnection online content manager, said, "I think the linking of BlufftonConnection.com with the Bluffton Icon is great. Both sides benefit and it also extends more of a variety to each site's viewers. This is a start of a great thing."

While the two news sources have been supporting each other for nearly two years, the official start date of this collaboration begins Feb. 1.

"We are very excited about linking The Icon and BlufftonConnection," said Fred Steiner of The Icon. "I believe students will find The Icon a valuable local news source."

The Icon brings to BlufftonConnection a strong following from Bluffton alumni across the United States. It also has a good following of parents who have sons or daughters playing in university athletics.

Those two groups should find BlufftonConnection an interesting addition to the news The Icon already provides. The collaboration between the two Internet sources should ultimately attract more viewers to both sites.

The Bluffton Icon launched in September 2009 with a handful of viewers. Today it experiences 800-plus viewers on weekdays with 85 percent of viewers living within 20 miles of Bluffton.

Fred and Mary Pannabecker Steiner created the Icon. Both are Bluffton University alumni. In addition, Mary is an adult and graduate representative for the university.