Metro Pulse/Gamut/Stranger in Dotcom Land

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Ms. Vicars discovers that the new economy is more fun than a bag of wet cats

by Angie Vicars

I grew up with the dream of being a writer but "content writing" never occurred to me until just a couple of years ago. In fact, there wasn't even an Internet when my childhood got underway. My expertise in those days was spelling "hell" upside down on a clunky, black calculator or playing Pong down the street at my neighbor Jeff's house. Eventually, I worked my way up to one of those electronic football games, but it turned out to be just as clunky as the calculator, and I couldn't even use it to spell anything.

I would've been happy to leave electronics behind after that. But when I got into high school, my mother resigned from her position as my typist. And since no one else was willing to tackle my handwriting, I was forced to enroll in typing classes, which came in really handy once computers got PC.

During college and grad school, I made my ends meet by working in bookstores while I eked out extra change as a freelance writer. But I started thinking that there must be a better way to balance my talents. After all, I was helping Suze Orman earn millions off of her book The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom. And I wasn't getting paid anything like millions to sell it—just in case you had any doubts about that. I wasn't even getting a cut of hers. So, I started making visits to Monster.com to investigate the work, life and possibilities of being a full-time writer who could put the check in the mail before the bill was actually due.

Lo and behold, one day the Monster search engine produced what sounded like the perfect opening for me. iPIX needed a writer who could handle anything from captioning pictures to creating the content for a sales person's CD, and especially producing new pages for the company Web site, www.ipix.com. They even wanted someone who liked Little Debbies and, although I didn't, I still got the job.

This is probably as good of a place as any to mention the following. I knew almost nothing about the world of dot.com at this point except that you could add it to the end of just about any name you wanted to find on the Internet. In fact, it seemed to have become an automatic practice to do this, much like adding "in bed" to the end of the saying in your fortune cookie.

So there I sat poised in my new office, ready to take on what sounded like the most exciting task to me, writing my very first Web page. But when my director, Karyn, came in to see me she said something that sounded a lot like, "Would you look up these acronyms that you've never heard of to find out about these other acronyms that you've never heard of and tell me what version of yet another acronym you've never heard of they're using?" After asking her to start over at the first acronym, she handed me a copy of Wired Style, Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age. And in no time I was talking exactly like all the other geeks. "Could you zap me the URL (Web site address) for the ISP (Internet Service Provider) that's using the latest version of ASP (Active Server Pages)?"

But I was soon learning more new things than how to talk technology. I had to read and write for the Web site in a language that dot.com understands, and HTML (Hypertext Markup Language, or, my definition, "How Tedious (Can It Get) Markup Language") is the most common code of choice these days. I think HTML is a little like pig Latin. It's not hard unless you actually start thinking about it. For example putting this command, <BR>, in the text tells the program to make one line break and two of these commands, <BR><BR>, tells it to make two line breaks and so on. Once you learn which button to click or which key to strike, it should be easy to make a Web page with any kind of text and images you need.

But did you notice that I said should? That's because the program is only as smart as the operator. In my case, the operator happened to be learning the ropes in her typically stubborn fashion. My very first morning (and admittedly a few times afterward), I worked meticulously putting my text into the HTML. But when I opened the Web page to view the results of my labors, there was nothing but white space as far as my mouse could scroll. I was utterly perplexed. I checked again. There was my page in HTML, with everything on it just like I wanted. And there was my Web page, as blank as blank could be. Toward the end of the day, I finally admitted that I was running into a bit of a blank wall, so to speak. Then one of the designers, Russ, showed me that I had started a table, <TABLE>, without ending it, </TABLE>, so as far as the HTML was concerned I had created a never-ending Web page. He also showed me a little button at the top of the program that would find all my errors and reveal them to me in the blink of an eye. Like he thought I needed to know that or something.

After I'd been working there about three months, and was able to make pages with content on them, I was assigned to write an entire small Web site (that's no longer live) called the iPIX Classroom. Since I hadn't written more than a handful of pages at a time up to this point, I felt less than ready to help create a whole Web site. But no one else had enough time to take on the task, so I was the writer and that was that.

On a Sunday evening, close to the deadline for going live, I came in to polish the text. I checked spacing, made line breaks, fixed capital letters, and carefully saved my changes on page after page. In another part of the building sat the designer, Billy, polishing the graphics, and the images, and the layout, on the very same pages at the very same time. But he wasn't saving the pages when I was and little did I know that we could both have them open. On Monday morning with everything we'd worked on looking strangely untouched, we slowly pieced together that our paths had crossed. As we worked our way back over what we'd undone, I realized that life with dot.com required a tremendous amount of keeping in touch with each other.

But the more I kept in touch, the less I wanted to. For instance, when iPIX went public we had to post the press releases to the Web site by 8:30 in the morning, although they weren't approved until 9 the night before. This involved not only seeing my co-workers before the sun had risen, but also being able to communicate with them. If you don't know what I'm like at 7 a.m., I can promise that you're far more fortunate than they were. Let me just say that I never edited with both hands because that would mean I had to put my coffee down.

"I'm not having as much fun with dot.com anymore," I was thinking one morning when my pager went off as my instant messenger chimed. Jennifer, a writer I'd recently hired, noticed that I made a mistake in the PR headline. It read, "Hawaii Contention and Visitors Bureau Uses iPIX Images to Attract Record Crowds." She suggested that we correct it, even though we all knew that the Hawaiians weren't up yet. That's when I decided that having the whole world for your audience sounds far more exciting in your first interview than it does once you realize what it really means. Everyone can see everything you do all the time.

To the dot.coms this kind of total exposure is a major selling point. But I had begun wanting out of the spotlight, even though I'd grown very accustomed to the glare. And then a strange thing happened, or so I thought at the time. iPIX suddenly shrank to 20 percent less than its former size. Not only did I not fit inside it anymore, neither did half of the people that I'd been calling my co-workers. Of course, countless people told me afterward that dot.com companies are the classic binge and purgers of the technology world.

I just wish they'd enlightened me before I took the job. But now that I know, I can make some predictions. Al Gore.com is due for a major purge. Meanwhile George W. Bush.com will change its name to MyPresident.com and hit a binge cycle in another four years with the highest concentration of its new hires in Florida. mySimon.com will be forced to purge itself after multiple parties file a major lawsuit against it. The suit will claim harassment from an obnoxious animated guy who followed the complainants at parties quoting prices incessantly. Flooz.com will purge current spokeswoman Whoopi Goldberg when they're able to replace her with the entire cast of Laugh-in for a lower fee. And now that pets.com has gone paws up, they'll purge the whole place for $3—no, $4.

And what will I be doing during all of this, you ask? As long as I get checks from unemployment.com, I have plenty of things to keep me occupied. I can download eBooks at barnesandnoble.com, collect my favorite songs at MP3.com, and plan my next vacation at discovery.travel.com, all without leaving the comfort of my home. Of course, I could write, too. I hear the print market has possibilities.