Megan Miller began her Web site
three years ago. Now, she says that the impending start of her college career has
brought about changes in her view of the world, changes that she says will be reflected on
her site. She will attend the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
A look at the land inside of her mind
A Medford teen's Web site shows her growth and the growth of sites as a form of expression.
By Wendy Ginsberg
INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF
MEDFORD - A step inside the mind of Megan Miller reveals a fascination with the 1980s and a proclivity for alternative rock bands.
Miller's brain is easily accessed, just visit her Web site: megsplace.com The site's deep-blue background gives browsers a full-course menu of ways to attempt to figure out its 18-year-old designer. And the array of point-and-click icons serves as a sampling of Miller's high school thoughts and memories.
While Miller prepares for college, which starts later this month, she has been pondering a change in her Web design, too. The site, she said, is a virtual scrapbook that has allowed her and thousands of others to watch as her tastes changed and her writing grew stronger.
Steven Barnhart, the director of instructional technology at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education in New Bruswick, said that the number of young people using the Web as a way to display their interests is growing very rapidly.
Although he says he doubts that Web sites will replace scrapbooks laden with newspaper clippings, he does consider the Internet another type of storage facility.
"It's a really cool way to preserve things," he said. "Even Kodak is beginning to put its pictures online, so it is changing things."
Miller's site, which she said receives more than 400 visitors each day, has links to the Medford Township home page and to profiles of some of her favorite rock bands. On the page devoted to her favorite decade, the 1980s, she included a section on Strawberry Shortcake, complete with the show's theme music.
Megsplace began about three years ago, when Miller went to a bookstore and purchased a book on how to use HTML, a computer programming language used to design Web sites.
"I kind of saw it as a neat thing to be able to do, " Miller said.
About two weeks later, Miller was designing her own site. Soon after, Miller began designing Web sites for local residents and small companies. In late 1997, her Web-design hobby grew into Webfomation, a company she formed with her older brother, Mike. Miller said she usually charges several hundred dollars per Web site but hates to ask to be paid.
While students might not intend to create a log of their lives online, Barnhart said, over time they discover that they have chronicled their own personal history on their Web site.
Although Miller is the chief executive of her own company, her bedroom reveals that she is still a teenager. A poster autographed by her favorite band, Stroke 9, is the centerpiece of her poster collection. Her computer is tucked in the corner underneath magazine cutouts of Oasis and Sandra Bullock. Her cat lies on the hood of her scanner.
"It's taken me through many big obstacles in my life, including high school, among other things," Miller said of her site.
Two years after the birth of her company, Miller is preparing to start her freshman year at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She plans to study graphic design and hopes to work on movie special effects after graduation. Although she will commute to school from her home, she said it was time to revamp her Web site.
"I'm going to put more about me on the site," she said. "Sometimes I look at something on my site and I say: 'I can't believe I was into that.' "
But, she said, she never deletes anything. "I'm a pack rat. I can't throw out anything. I just move it into the corner or something," she said.
As Miller prepares for college, she said, surfers of her Web site should prepare for a more introspective and more mature site. "I still want my baby nieces to be able to enjoy the site, but I want to make sure the site still reflects who I am," she said.
Miller's involvement in Web design started as an
interest and has grown into a business. This is her home page.
If you would like to see the full original article, please click here.
Photo By: Sharon Gekoski-Kimmel / Inquirer Suburban Staff
This article was part of the
Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Edition Newspaper
Neighbors Section on August 12 & 13, 2000
Article Copyright Philadelphia
Inquirer - All Rights Reserved
Reprinted here only as part of my site because it was featured
