Another article, yay! The Web Philippines magazine has included me in an article entitled “Web Artists to watch out for” in the Jan/Feb 2000 issue. Following the recent success of the 1999 Philippine Web Awards, several articles about the winning webmasters, including this one, has been published.
Post-edit: I can only retrieve my black and white photocopies but not the colored one.
This article 'Web artists to watch out for' was originally published in the Jan/Feb 2000 issue of The Web Philippines, page 44. It's probably written by Ike Sulat.
Web artists to watch out for
Cheryl Oliva Fuerte
1999’s Winningest
The Web Awards had been very kind to Cheryl, also known as Inday, last year. She garnered three awards; one for Donna Cruz (Film/Celebrities); Nonijuice (People’s Choice, Health); and one for her personal website Indayworks (People’s Choice, Family/Personal). Inday, at age 21, is 1999’s winningest individual web artist. The awards she got has led to newspaper, magazine, and TV interviews, all of which she loved, being the ‘showbiz’ type of person she is.
Being a huge Donna Cruz fan led to her creation of a fan site back in 1996, which eventually became the official one after some correspondence with Donna herself. Cheryl herself loves singing, but we’re not likely to hear that she has won awards for that particular talent.
Ronnie Miranda
Celebmaster
Can tens of thousands of hits be wrong? Ronnie Miranda is one of the most successful Philippine Webmasteres, and has the enviable position of having cornered the market of celebrity Web sites, in the process of creating sharoncuneta.com, one of the Philippines’ most visited.
Ronnie’s long and winding career started in 1987, when he was forced to learn 3D in MediaBoutique using a 286 computer. He has since then achieved a lot in 3D and computer graphics; creating a station ID for Channel 9; graphics for TV shows, including ‘Bakal Boy,’ an interactive 3D character created for GMA’s ‘Ober da Bakod;’ Viva Film’s animated 3D title (usually shown before trailers and films). His company, StormViz, was created out of the need to give receipts and other formalities in dealing with showbiz companies.
In 1996 he got his first e-mail address- the benefit of being an Ateneo alumnus. It was love at first mail when he discovered that he could instantly communicate and send files through the service. Some time after, he applied as a product tester for an ISP, and was soon toying with making websites through WYSIWYG page editors, and learning what he had to in creating his first, stormviz.com.
Ronnie’s first paying client for a Web site is Sharmaine Arnaiz, and by that time, if you’re a celeb, it’s hip to have a Web site. The fever caught on, and work followed for Pops Fernandez, Dina Bonnevie, Mikee Cojuango, Rachel Alejandro, and Zsa Zsa Padilla (who was the first celeb to have her own domain name). His biggest website came when Sharon Cuneta, who was in Boston then, heard of Ronnie’s work, and asked for one for herself. What followed was a year of negotiation, and a lot of careful study, because Sharon’s Web site is going to behuge, owing to the body of work she already produced.
Ronnie says that while it is prestigious working with celebrities, it can be really draining, especially he is a one-man company, and has to attend numerous concerts and performances in updating the celebrity websites he has created. One would say it was all worth it, since he had recently been married to Alice Dixson. The couple are planning to relocate soon to Canada.
Post-edit: Anyone who has a full color copy of this article, segment, please do contact me! I wish we had iPhones back then.