Net.people: The Personalities and Passions behind the Web Sites

Citation

Fields, A. (2001), "Net.people: The Personalities and Passions behind the Web Sites", Online Information Review, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 131-141. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2001.25.2.131.6

Bleier and Steinert are both veterans of the Internet industry, but here have followed an aspiration to write rather than continue developing and marketing Web sites. The result of their efforts is this temporal gem exposing some of the net.people – those individuals responsible for some of the more offbeat Web sites available today. Perhaps considered lightweight and appealing mainly to Generation X and Y readers, this book is nonetheless fascinating.

The focus is on 36 Internet celebrities and goes well beyond the usual grounds of Web site reviews and awards to focus on the individuals responsible for creating and driving these successful Web sites. The selection of sites and their creators was made to be of interest to the general reader, with sites “primarily run by one person and started with no corporate backing … These site creators … discuss not only why they operate their sites and what they hope to accomplish, but also what unique opportunities their site has opened up for them.”

This angle makes these stories very interesting for the lay reader and opens up a huge market for readers who want to dabble in the backgrounds of successful entrepreneurs. The questions asked of these net.people focus around what drove each of them to develop a Web site, while never actually knowing whether the site or subject they were interested in was going to succeed. There are some quite inspirational stories in this collection, although it is uncertain whether following in the footsteps of these people would duplicate such success.

The 36 net.people have been gathered into several loose groupings: Getting Advice and Educating Yourself; Visiting, Watching and Playing outside the Web World; Collecting Stuff and Other Diversions; The Written Word and Journalistic Endeavours. The resulting Web sites vary greatly in terms of subject and popularity. Many have very specific and dedicated audiences, such as comicbookresources.com for serious comic book fans, breakupgirl.com who specialises in romance advice with a humorous bent, and thefreesite.com where visitors can access free items including software, manufacturers’ samples, Web space, screensavers, e‐mail servers and more.

The content of this work is displayed in a magazine format with plenty of graphics and sample Web pages. The text is written in an easily accessible style to match, appealing to browsers, the graphically‐minded, and younger readers. There is no index or bibliography and, while the list of sites given in the back of the book is useful, it is not linked to pages within the text.

Readership of this book will be largely those under 30 plus those interested in Internet culture, pop culture or personal success stories. This collection is best suited to public libraries, and to other collections dealing with the Internet and its culture and place within society. This is fascinating, if lightweight, reading.