Beauty and the Net
by Dominic R. Rivera

Part 2

Meanwhile Anjanette Abayari's site has also the same features as the first two sites that I visited. Letters for the actress should be addressed to aphrodite@cyber.cyb-live.com. Based on the entries in her guestbook, it seems that the major come-on of her website is her gallery of pictures. A visitor in her page placed this entry, "hello, diwata ka sa paningin ko."

Unlike Dawn and Maricel's page, this site is officially endorsed by the actress.

Charlene's website is simple but captivating. As one guest in her page said, "you are dazzling, captivating, and blindingly beautiful." It also has the same features as the other websites.

Being the 1994 Miss Universe third runner-up, the site also has a link going to the website of Miss Universe.

Just like Anjanette, Charlene's site is an official project of the actress with Storm Visualization being the web author.

Long before these sites came up, Lea Salonga was already on the Internet. The site, among others, has her biography and video captures. It also has links to other Lea Salonga webpages which only shows that the actress is at par, if not better, with other international stars.

Aside from her website and the other pages that were created by her fans, Lea Salonga also has an electronic newsletter and a mailing list.

There is nothing much to be seen at Ruby's site except for an introductory message and links going to her favorite sites. It does not even have a guestbook nor a listing of the movies that she has already done.

Movie-related sites

There are also sites pertaining to Filipino movie stars.

The Philippine Cinema Page has sections worthy of browsing around. These includes the latest news on Philippine movies; Philippine firsts in cinema; list of Hollywood movies shot on location in the Philippines; internationally- acclaimed movies; and Filipino players in Hollywood.

There is also the Ten Most Beautiful Filipinos Poll which calls for surfers to send in their nominations through e-mail.

As of October 6, its poll results show that Lea Salonga got the most number of votes at 123 followed by Dawn Zulueta with 88.

They're almost the same

Websites of the movie stars that I have visited have basically the same features-- career history, a photo gallery, and a guestbook that enables some interactivity. We still have to see a page that will deviate from this standard form of presenting a movie star's website.

With more stars getting hooked on the Internet, I expect more of them to make their presence felt on the Internet as this technology makes it easier for them to reach out to their fans abroad. We may even see Filipino movies being promoted on the Internet.

But again, I do not want to see "Mabango" being promoted on the Net.