Hercules and Xena |
Spiff Up Your Hercules/Xena Web Site | Hercules and Xena essays |
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Hercules and Xena |
Spiff Up Your Hercules/Xena Web Site | Hercules and Xena essays |
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Spiff Up Your Hercules/Xena Web Site
In my last column I discussed some of the ways to help build a community around your Web sites. A strong sense of community is important to online fandom. It's nice if you can get a few hundred or even a few thousand people to visit your site every day, but it takes a lot of hard work and time to build up that kind of traffic. And you don't get much enjoyment simply from watching your hit counter go up. It's when people start emailing you and looking forward to your next update that a fannish Web site really pays off. A typical Web site will include a few images, maybe even an image gallery. This is, to me, the 1990s equivalent of the decorated bedroom. Kids still put posters on the wall, but people now show off their creative appreciation for favorite artists and topics by creating Web sites. There is an ever hungry market for images. My niece Kristina has over 900 images of Selena which she collected off the Web. I don't know if she'll ever create a Web site, but if she does, she'll have a heck of a gallery ready-to-go. But if there's one thing I've found that seems more popular than the graphics, it's fan fiction. Fanfic sites seem to be among the most popular categories at Xena Online Resources -- usually coming in the top five sections that people visit at Xenite.Org every week. People just can't seem to get enough fan fiction. And every month we find new sites which host fan fiction -- stories written by people other than the Web site owners. Fan fiction offers something for everyone: Webmasters who recruit a few regular writers are assured of a fairly regular stream of new content. People who visit the fanfic sites find a lot of (hopefully) interesting content to download and read. And fanfic authors don't have to worry about creating and maintaining (let alone promoting) a Web site. But fan fiction is not the only alternative to creating image gallerys. Some Web sites feature book reviews, episode reviews, and opinion columns, or just news and inside information gleaned from various sources. A Webmaster who can recruit a few resourceful reporters can quickly build up an avid following among fans. The International Association of Xena Studies is probably the best-known group of fannish researchers. Every month they put out a new issue of Whoosh!, their monthly journal, which includes interviews, essays, letters from other fans, analyses of the show, and more. Writing is sometimes a Webmaster's best friend. In fact, at XOR, one of the few criteria we maintain for listing a Web site is that it contain some original content, even if only a few sentences. People can get the standard pictures just about anywhere. It's not enough to put a link to the official Web sites with pictures of Lucy and Kevin and say you're a fan of Xena and Hercules. People who browse the Web are looking for something to stimulate them. Maybe you created a collage from various images -- maybe you have written a parody of an episode -- maybe you have a carefully written analysis of a particular storyline -- maybe you just provide information on the shows and the actors. Express yourself. Let others know what you think and feel. To help build that sense of community, it is a good idea to ask other people to participate in designing and maintaining your Web site. The team-driven sites aren't always the best ones, but they do offer a wide variety of ideas and often look very professional. It helps to have someone looking over your shoulder after you've spent several hours putting together a few new pages and have uploaded them. Teams might become a little cliquish, but they can provide each member the support and encouragement that is necessary to keep motivation high. After a year or two of maintaining a Web site, your passion for the topic may no longer be as great as it once was. That's okay. Web sites have been known to change hands. When you're ready to move on to something else, if you've created a popular site, it doesn't necessarily have to go away. Maybe one of the team members will take it over for you. |
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