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MEGASTAR IN CYBERSPACE - Part 1
Last Nov. 12, the Philippines' megastar Sharon Cuneta finally went online in the World Wide Web. Ma'am Sharon's homepage address, www.sharoncuneta.com, made its much-awaited debut in cyberspace. After the long wait, after hours of searching in Yahoo and Yehey, after zooming up and down the labyrinthine corridors of the information superhighway, Sharonians all over the world can now have the chance to "visit" their idol, at least in the Internet. Initial response to Shawie's web site is impressive, or in the exact word of Ronnie Miranda, president/webmaster of Storm Visualization & imaging (StormViz, the company behind Sharon's web site): "Overwhelming. It has really been a very much-awaited web site not only locally but also globally. Sharon is very popular abroad that many of her visitors are from other countries. Read the guestbook... it says it all." Indeed.
Barangay Sharonian is everywhere. Fans from near (Ayala Alabang, Ozamis, Dumaguete) and far (Aukland, New Zealand; Virginia Beach, Kuala Lumpur) have signed in her guestbook. A bunch of Filipina nurses from Fortworth, Texas also dropped by to say "Hi!" There were also visitors from places her local Sharonians surely haven't heard of, like Etobicoke in Ontario, Canada and Stavanger, Norway. The web site also afforded long-lost friends to renew ties with Ms. Mega - like her Stockton 1990 concert promoter and a Vicor dancer, as well as a cyber-pal from Puerto Princessa. Local celebrities like Teresa and Bing Loyzaga were also among the first to log in. The guestbook also produced a cute bit of trivia: the owner of Super Ferry, one of the blue-chip companies Sha endorses, called her "Boss." Boss Shawie herself is excited by all the frenetic activity in her hp (cyber-lingo for homepage). One fine Sunday morning, she was unable to retrieve the incoming messages in her personal email address, so she decided to visit her web site and respond to the early birds who signed in her guestbook. Needless to say, the recipients of the mega-missives were incredulous. "Hindi sila makapaniwala," Sharon laughs. But she is really like that, friends would readily attest, she personally attends to all her correspondence, her fan mail, her business mail, her electronic mail, her Christmas card list, etc. "Unfortunately, there's only one of me. Multiplicity, anyone?" As they say, send in the (cyber) clones.
Last Nov 17, Sharon's web site was chosen as the Best Cyber Pinoy Site for the Day by Tanikalang Ginto, the Philippine's most comprehensive web directory. Can the Webby awards be far behind? Heart-warming the feedback is, but when you talk in terms of cyber figures, the response to sharoncuneta.com becomes all the more compelling. For 12 days, it easily clinched 330 hits per day. After Ms. Mega announced her web site address on her Sunday TV talk show "Sharon," the frequency of visits increased remarkably. (Twenty-one visitors who signed in the guestbook specifically mentioned that they heard about the mega homepage on her TV show, which is broadcast in North America through ABS-CBN's The Filipino Channel.) "Considering that it has been much-awaited and considering the popularity of Sharon worldwide, this is not surprising., " Miranda says of the skyrocketing figures. "But for a site that went online for just a couple of days, this is an amazing feat. As the site propagates throughout the entire Internet, it is expected to generate more hits, perhaps reach at least 1,000 hits per day." True enough, on its third week, Shawie's web site has notched 1,000 visits per day. In an email to the megastar, Miranda wrote: "Your site is really getting most of the traffic now. I got my access reports for today. I'm just halfway through my monthly cycle and I've already used up 67 percent of my monthly Network Traffic Allowance. This is the first time this has ever happened since I've been online 2 years ago. :) Traffic suddenly shot up when your site went online." |