Your Guide to Cyber Gay Space
Webmastering by KimBoo York
Gay space is exploding, and I'm not talking about the ViMi in Orlando or Hyde Park in Tampa. ON the Web, the number of gay and lesbian oriented Web sites is compounding daily, with political action sites, homepages, national organizations, regional community centers, and educational institutions all muscling for room.
Every day, I open my email to find one or two press released hyping a new Web site that caters to the gay and lesbian community. From the lurid to the helpful, these online efforts run the gamut; and for every one that actually sends a press release announcing its launch, there are dozens of sites that just appear out of the ether.
THe history of the gay and lesbian community has often been one of silence and innuendo — until the late 60s and 70s, most gay and lesbian publications were small, underground affairs — and of a community too intimidated by social mores to speak out. While magazines and newspaper have filled that void over the last few decades, at both the national and regional level, nothing quite compares to the breadth and numbers of the online gay community. It is, literally, staggering.
So, the questions becomes, how can you keep up? Certainly not by typing the word "gay" or "lesbian" into your search engine du jour. That will only get you 2,738,999 site matches, of which 2,738,998 will be hard-core porno sites (not that there is anything wrong with that). And while it is convenient to just bookmark WatermarkOnline and BadPuppy and ignore everything else, you are going to miss out on a lot.
In an effort to keep the information flowing, we are starting a new feature in CompuQueer: Queer Bytes. This separate section will highlight late-breaking news from the Web, including new sites, mergers, sit shut downs, and more, all with their Web addresses so that you can jump online and check them out for yourself. And anyone who finds a site that might be of interes to our sommunity is encourages to forward its address to me at kimboo @ watermarkonline.com.
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