 |
Bigger Than Madonna: Interview with
Peter J. Weber |
Although at first blush it may seem a bad idea to list internet sites in a printed book (after all, many of them could be obsolete before the book hits the shelves), Peter J. Weber's The Incredible Internet Guide to Star Wars has much to recommend it to fans. For one thing, its almost 1,100 listings include many sites you cannot find through search engines. For another, its table of contents and categorization make it easy for browsers to find just what they're looking for. Finally, the descriptions and icons can save browsers a lot of time (and money) that might be wasted going to sites that don't have the desired content. We've talked with author Peter J. Weber about how this book came to be.
Echo Station: How many people were involved in the writing of this book?
Peter J. Weber: Only two -- James R. Flowers, Jr., and myself. We are both editors by profession. The concept of The Incredible Internet Guides belongs to Jimmy, and originally, he developed and licensed the programs used for a guide to Madonna web sites. The publisher decided that we needed something more topical and larger in scope -- I was befuddled 'cause what could be bigger than Madonna? Star Wars and Star Trek, that's what! I was the big Star Wars fan -- and Jimmy was, well, a fan of that other production, but a good chap nonetheless.
ES: How much time was spent researching the various sites?
PJW: Even before turning on the computer -- before going online, or typing a word -- a list of 90 categories was developed. This list was based on everything I thought existed in the Star Wars Universe online. So, when I did begin visiting Star Wars sites, I had a fairly good idea of what I thought I was looking for, although, to tell the truth, I had never, ever, seen a Star Wars site before. Never. Nada. But that was good, because I had no preferences, no biases. Everything I found was exciting -- I was seeing it all for the first time. And that's a good way to do it -- it keeps you objective, on your toes, and curious. It was an adventure, and that adventuresome "feeling" comes out in the book, I think.
How much time I spend on a site depends a lot on the personality of the writer of the site. You develop a sixth sense about whether or not the publisher of the site is really into it or not. Most have to be into it -- but how far? Some people can really get into the details! Some can be really humorous, or artistic, or opinionated, controversial, alternative -- but most of all, informed!
ES: During what time frame were you researching the sites?
PJW: February to April 1999. We were shooting to finish the book before Episode I, but it didn't come together (kinda like the movie), so we checked our sites and polished up "the look" in May. Surprisingly, the "die off" rate for Star Wars pages is not very high. Some sites in The Incredible Internet Guide to Star Wars had not been updated since 1997, yet they are very much alive. I call pages from that time period the "classic Star Wars pages," and they all have a very similar "look."
ES: What methods did you use to find the sites? Any search engines in particular? Link lists?
PJW: With search engines, you must be very specific and very careful in your queries, or you'll wind up barking up the wrong tree. But, search engines are good for finding sites for obscure, specific topics like Salacious Crumb, Jabba's noxious monkey-lizard pet. You would think, though, that a search engine would have no trouble finding most of the Carrie Fisher sites, but in fact, several of the search engines I used only found about half of the sites for her, and completely missed a couple absolutely great foreign Carrie sites. While searching capabilities of search engines always seems to be in a state of flux, HotBot worked best for my purposes. But, I only used a search engine about 5% of my research time. They are too slow and inaccurate.
Most leads for Star Wars sites come from -- no surprise -- other Star Wars sites, typically in the form of link lists. Almost all sites have a "links page," and if they don't, there's a web tool that will tell me who else a site links to. Very secret Jedi trick! Also, a lot of credit has to go out to those dedicated fans who publish lists of Star Wars sites. Once you start exploring links at Echo Station, the Star Wars "clickstream" ranges far and wide.
Webrings are fun to explore, but not to research. Rings will, however, take you to hard-to-find sites -- sites you may not discover from outside the ring. If you have a site, join all the rings you can. The Incredible Internet Guide to Star Wars lists over 60 webrings you can join.
ES: Though I'll preface this question by saying this book is a very complete reference guide, the main problem from many people's perspective with a book about the internet in general and websites specifically is that they're out of date as soon as they go to press... sites go offline, pages move, content changes, etc. Are there plans for a second edition of this book with updated information? Perhaps even a web-based edition containing the various sites in an online link page or even a web accessible database?
PJW: The recent geocities/yahoo fiasco has left a lot of sites in limbo -- still there, but perhaps never to be updated. Some authors have moved from geocities and left pointers to their new location. Most didn't, and now their sites slowly deteriorate, lose links, lose sub-pages. We set up robots that tell us when a page dies or moves, so, in future Incredible Internet Guide to Star Wars editions corrections and changes can be made. Most copies of my book are in distribution, and the original print run -- the first edition -- will soon be gone. I work daily on updates for the next edition. While our publisher does release CD-ROM and web products, at this time there is no plan to publish our Star Wars info in any other format beyond the book itself. In my own mind, the book is so inexpensive, easy to use, and inclusive, it is more like a year's worth of magazines than a book, pricewise. We same day ship book orders, and offer discounts on our site to fans who are already online. In fact, the web site for The Incredible Internet Guide to Star Wars (http://www.brbpub.com/iig/starwars) offers the book at a 25% discount, which is the lowest price available online.
ES: How close to publication time did you verify the links as being live? How did you go about doing so?
PJW: Jedi mind tricks! The Web has wonderful online tools -- some are free, some aren't. At virtually any moment, we can verify the validity of the links we're tracking. We continued to verify our links days before we went to press, in order to put out the best quality product that we possibly could. It's almost creepy.
ES: You use a lot of what are known as "deep links" in the book... links to specific articles or pages within a site rather than to the site itself or to a section within the site. For example, under the topic "Book Reviews," you have links to specific reviews of specific books on a given site, rather than just linking to the "Book Reviews" section of that website... was this intentional?
PJW: Yes, and for several reasons. We wanted a book that had direct URLs to specific pages, because search engines rarely, if ever, index them. So, we've indexed pages you probably won't find listed anywhere else, or linked to by anyone else. At the same time, these heretofore unlocatable pages have valuable Star Wars information content -- content that readers might or should want to know about.
Also, a lot of people don't care to visit the main page of a site, because there's only one aspect of the subject that they're after -- screensavers, fan fiction, audio, whatever -- and by listing the "deep links," Incredible Internet Guide users don't have to click their way down. Instead they go straight to what they want.
ES: Which came first... the categories or the site lists? Did you find yourself having to evolve the categories as you discovered new and different sites?
PJW: Categories. Yes, there was some problems rectifying what categories to place sites in. A tough question was: should "filmographies" be listed under "Characters" or under "Films"? Filmographies list all the "productions" an actor has been involved in, and when. We list filmographies under "Films" but we mention that readers should also consult the individual character sections. So, if you were interested in the film career of Harrison Ford, you could find a web site with the information you want in the Filmographies section and/or in the Han Solo/Harrison Ford section. Often, we place a site in several kin-categories as a convenience to the readers.
Yes; as I researched sites, I did add categories, but in the "book production" phase, we also combined small categories together. Originally under "Games," we moved CCGs into their own section. "Videos" was separated into five individual sections: AVIs, MPEGs, QuickTimes, Real Video, and Video-Miscellaneous. So that no matter what software Incredible Internet Guide users have, they can find videos online.
ES: Your introduction to the book estimates that there are close to 10,000 Star Wars websites on the internet, and mentions that there are nearly 1,100 included within the pages of the book. What influenced your decision process as far as which sites made it into the book, and those that did not?
PJW: First, we could not visit all 10,000+ "pages" out there. On average, each "site" has four "pages." Sites like Echo Station probably have over 100. I did visit and index most of the quality sites. Additionally, some of the book's categories would have been overrun with sites/pages, and the book would have been consumed by just a few major categories. So, in some instances, once I felt that I had the "best" sites for a category, I stopped searching for more, and instead added to that category only when I found a site that belonged and shouldn't be left out.
ES: If you could make one general suggestion to the Star Wars webmasters out there... what would it be?
PJW: Build, baby, build! Make your site easy to use -- easy to navigate, clean, organized -- yet "flavorful." List your contents up front, make your main page easy for browsers to load, but absolutely pile on the meta-tags, and go for quality and panache. Register your pages with search engines, join webrings, keep your links current, trade banners, have a guestbook, a visitor counter, and something that lets the viewer participate like a quiz, survey, email to you. I love big images 'cause you can instantly use them as wallpaper. Remember to deliver on your topics. One thing that irked me was going to a site with a name like "The Cantina" and not finding anything about the Cantina.
ES: The back of your book lists ways to contact you for corrections, updates, or additions of information...how many emails have you received thus far, and how many are you anticipating?
PJW: Since The Incredible Internet Guide to Star Wars is the first in the series, we didn't really know what to expect. So far, the response has been great. It is difficult keeping up with email changes, but we manage. Of course, we welcome anyone with a site not in the book to e-mail us their URL and we'll view your site for future editions. Also, those in the book should let us know of updates, improvements, and changes to their sites.
ES: .... and why aren't you using one of our nifty @coruscant.net addresses? <g>
PJW: Yi! I already have 25 email addresses, but I'm signing up on Coruscant right now!
ES: Having looked through the best (and the worst) of the Star Wars online universe... what makes a site "great" in your (or your team's) eyes? Not-so-great?
PJW: It's got to have heart, but they all have heart. You know, a person puts up a Star Wars site because they like the movie, the story, the people, the excitement of it -- or whatever. Think of it, though: they took the time to produce, polish out, and publish something for no other reason than they like Star Wars. That's pretty fantastic. Then, they pour their personality into it -- their likes and dislikes, their opinions and observations, their feelings, they show their talent, they show their collections of Star Wars stuff -- they publish all kinds of stuff. Tons of it. The biggest media mogul on earth couldn't buy nor produce what's on those sites. It's huge priceless publicity for the Star Wars movies. It IS phenomenal -- and, it's phenomenal in a way that the main characters in the Star Wars story are phenomenal. It's like a wedding, it's an event, it's a coming together and enjoying something, and doing it on this grand, personable stage called the Web. I kinda think that all Star Wars sites have a greatness.
What did I think was not so great? I don't think people should devote so much time to cranking about George Lucas. Hey, it's not easy to please a billion people. I can't even get my car to pass emissions tests, let alone produce a movie. I should say, though, that I'm hoping that George sees his way clear to doing a director's cut of Phantom Menace so that some of its shortcomings can be rectified. I'm sure there's plenty of film on the cutting room floor that should be in the film.
ES: Are you a Star Wars fan yourself? What about the rest of your team?
PJW: Do Death Stars explode? Sadly, each day, I have to work with a Star Trek fan. It truly is not a perfect world. Seriously, though, I had more fun in the past five months then I've had in years.
ES: What, if anything, did you learn during the research and writing phases of this book?
PJW: What I learned is this: time is valuable, and the book I was working on would save Star Wars fans everywhere a lot of time online. Most of all, what's in the book will help make anyone a Star Wars expert, pronto.
ES: Your book contains many links to sites which contain images, movies, sound files... all sorts of items closely held under LucasFilm copyright. There are some sites which may feel like you've just painted a bullseye on them by making their whereabouts more well known... any concerns or comments in that vein?
PJW: Sure. Don't worry. The "priceless" (that's worth repeating) free publicity that is generated by the Star Wars fans on the Internet is not worth monkeying with. Some film companies and some production companies and some licensing people may disagree with that, but I think George Lucas is intelligent enough not to cook the goose that lays golden eggs. The more Star Wars web sites there are, the bigger the momentum -- the greater the interest -- the more fans there are! Star Wars has become us. We're the heroes.
ES: Did anyone at LFL review this book prior to publication? If so, what did they have to say about it? If not, have they contacted you and/or the publishing company about it, or are you expecting contact from them?
PJW: My book is about what's happening on the Internet -- and Star Wars is a big happening there! We asked the Lucas folks if they would supply us with pictures for my book. They declined, and I believe the reason they declined is due to their contractual obligations in licensing agreements, and NOT because they didn't want us to explore the Star Wars universe. Besides, like everyone else, I paid my $10 for an Internet connection, what I found is from the Internet, I paid to see the movie, and I'm not charging the Lucas folks for publicizing their enterprise. What do you think I should charge them for all the free publicity the book is generating for them?
ES: In your research, did you find that a majority of the sites were dealing with the original trilogy of films or The Phantom Menace... or both equally?
PJW: Many of the older sites were updated since April 1998 to include Prequel information. Additionally, the new "Star Wars Prequel" sites are probably doing the right thing by incorporating Trilogy pages. So, it's very hard to say if there was, is, or will be a predominance of one or the other. I tend to doubt that the Phantom Menace will spawn a swelling of Prequel Star Wars web sites, and that's because I don't think the fans liked the Phantom Menace all that much. If you don't like something that much, you're not going to devote yourself to producing a web site about it.
ES: As a person who has now not only written about Star Wars web sites, but Star Trek web sites as well in an upcoming book, you are perhaps uniquely qualified to answer the question "Who is the bigger geek... the Star Wars fan, or the Star Trek fan?" (lighthearted, of course <g>)
PJW: I tried to watch an episode of Deep Space Nine last night. I just had to turn to ESPN. Actually, I'm not writing much for The Incredible Internet Guide for Trekkers. That's Jimmy's book. But from the looks of it, if you're a fan of Trek, you'll want to get a copy of it too.
ES: How many times in the course of your research did you stumble across pirated copies of The Phantom Menace available for download?
PJW: Pirated? For all I know, it could have been released by -- well, I don't know.
ES: What was the most obscure object or person that had either a large portion of a web site or an entire site dedicated to it that you discovered?
PJW: Porkins Central is right up there.
ES: Maybe I'm not looking hard enough in the book <g>, but you have a designation of "Adult Content" for which I just couldn't seem to find any matching sites... are there that many Star Wars sites containing adult content out there? And what constitutes "adult content"?
PJW: I don't believe there are many offensively racy ones, since Star Wars web sites are quite clean -- but, when we apply the old "Hayes Rules" and the Standards for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to the rules of good taste, then Toshi Station and a few others get the "adult content" stamp. Seriously, I expected to find at least one site where Carrie Fisher was exposed, ravaged and plundered, but the worst I found was a cutout of her head transposed on a bikini-clad female bodybuilder's bod.
ES: Can you give us a little background on yourself?
PJW: Goodness mercy me, I've lost my Star Wars nerd code! At times I've been a Han Solo -- in fact, as you know, Harrison Ford went to Ripon College, but mercifully dropped out before graduating. In the 1970's, in Ripon, I was drag racing and got chased by the man -- and got away! I settled down and became a magazine editor in the eighties and early nineties. I do astrology charts for racehorses. Really. No, Really!
ES: On your company?
PJW: We thought we'd try something different. The result was The Incredible Internet Guide to Star Wars. We also publish Find It Online by Pulitzer-prize nominee Alan Schlein, also books on public records, competitive intelligence, and other useful business stuff.
ES: What's next on your agenda?
PJW: I'm open to suggestions.
ES: Any parting words or thoughts?
PJW: Keep those sites up and follow your heart. Get this book, 'cause I don't want to hear you complaining about how you missed out later. AND, definitely, definitely, bookmark Echo Station.
LINKS
Click here to purchase The Incredible Internet Guide to Star Wars.
To write to Peter J. Weber the address is peterjweber@naboo.zzn.com.
To suggest changes or additions to The Incredible Internet Guide to Star Wars, the preferred address is WebSiteCentral@naboo.zzn.com.
(Dave Phillips is lead webmaster for ECHO STATION, and generally tries to sit back and let the folks foolish enough to volunteer to help out with things run the place as much as possible. He can generally be found romping around on the messsage boards, and shamelessly promoting his web hosting company, NovaTech Web Services. If you've got some free time, love STAR WARS, and want to be a part of a still rapidly growing and evolving site, he'd love it if you'd drop him a note.)
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