alternative-worlds.com

[brian]

This is a general announcement about the domain "alternative-worlds.com".

I have hoped to make a public launch for July - last Friday, in fact - but the nature of the domain itself tells me that there's going to be no room for a "public launch" as such as I have done with my other sites.

www.alternative-worlds.com is a big project, but I hadn't realised just how big I would need to make it. To cut a long story short, I thought I would only need a few dozen pages to cover most of the content - but that figure has rocketde to a few thousand!

And the way I actually structure my webpages means that every page is made up of 2 files: a basic template index, and a page-specific content file. So 4000+ pages for the books section alone will require me to create over 8000 files. And that's before I even include collecting and putting up the book cover graphics for over 4000 authors!!

There is no way I'm letting this project drop - I knew it would take time, and now I see just how much work is involved.

I've started, but it will take quite some time. I'll maybe do a *big* public launch once I have all of those 8000+ files up!

As for reviews - personal appriasals - oh, yes, keep them coming! I'm simply looking for reader feedback on what they have read. If you've anything to send then please address it to: brian(at)alternative-worlds.com

I'll try to ensure I can give something back for all those who take part in this great project (backlinks to your own sites is just a starter).

I'm going to put up the appraisals I have by the end of this month. No big announcement. I'm going to grow www.alternative-worlds.com slowly and carefully. I intend it to have become a very major sci-fi portal within 2 years. A long time, perhaps, but it's being developed in conjunction with a chain of other developing sites.

So, this post is to let you know that www.alternative-worlds is going to continue on, slowly but surely, as I draw my plans for internet dominance of core interest areas.

Oh - and I'll give it a full redesign as well, so that it implicitely covers fantasy as well as sci-fi.

Welcome to the future.

Brian

[Arch]

Hey, good luck with it. I'm just glad it's not me putting up all those thousands of pages! *smiles*

[littlemissattitude]

Brian...I had wondered what was going on, but I know you are busy so I didn't want to bother you with an e-mail. I haven't forgotten the reviews; I've just been particularly busy lately myself, plus it has just been too hot to do anything. As I sit here writing this at nearly 11 p.m. local time, it is still around 90 degrees F., and that is cooler than it has been at this time in at least a week.

Anyway, I hope I will have more reviews on the way to you in the next week or two. I had good intentions of doing some writing when I went to the public library this afternoon to use their air conditioning. However, I ended up sitting there and sleeping for almost two hours instead. Oops! Well, I guess I needed the sleep.

Keep up the good work.

[chronicles]

I spent most of the day building new pages for the site. I had hoped to just upload the reviews...but I figured that there was more than enough room to flesh out the surrounding pages...

To cut a long story short, whenever an author is reviewed, I create a page the review s linked from, listing everything the author has even had published - in terms of novels and short story collections - and all with dates of publication.

Plus there's the alphabetical listings that require the links updating, plus the new pages for the reviews showing what they've reviewed...and then there's making sure the URL's and content are search engine optimised. Lots of things!

It's been a busy day! I absolutely *will* have everything uploaded by the end of next week, as I publicly stated the launch would be in July 2003. And I'll stick to that, even though it's at the end of the month, rather than the start. (The conversion of the forum software at www.comparative-religion.com really held me up - it didn't run smoothly. There's a good chance I'll do the same here soon now the software converter should be past its basic beta stage - I'm really pushing for good search engine indexing.)


All in all, at the end of next week, alternative-worlds.com will have a modest but firm start in its very serious bid to become a major internet portal for sci-fi and fantasy within 2 years.

I'm going to put out some e-mails the moment it's done, for all those either alerady on board, or about to join in.