Personal web pages are World Wide Web pages created by an individual to contain content of a personal nature. The content can be about that person or about something he or she is interested in. Personal web pages can be the entire content of a domain name belonging to the person (which would then be a personal website), or can be a page or pages that are part of a larger domain on which other pages are located - an example of one such larger site is GeoCities. Personal web pages are often used solely for informative or entertainment purposes. Defining personal web page is difficult, because many domains or combinations of web pages that are under the control of a single individual can be used by the individual for commercial purposes, ranging from just the presentation of advertising, to electronic commerce: the sale of goods, services or information; in fact eBay began as the personal web page of Pierre Omidyar. WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet. ... A screenshot of a web page. ... The term domain name has multiple related meanings: A name that is entered into a computer (e. ... Yahoo! GeoCities is a free webhosting service founded by David Bohnett and John Rezner in late 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet. ... Information is a term with many meanings depending on context, but is as a rule closely related to such concepts as meaning, knowledge, instruction, communication, representation, and mental stimulus. ... A stilt-walker entertaining shoppers at a shopping centre in Swindon, England Entertainment is an event, performance, or activity designed to give pleasure or relaxation to an audience (although, for example, in the case of a computer game the audience may be only one person). ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... eBay headquarters in San Jose eBay North First Street satellite office campus (home to PayPal) eBay Inc. ... Pierre M. Omidyar (born 21 June 1967) is an Iranian French American entrepreneur and philanthropist/economist, and the founder/chairman of the eBay auction site. ...

Personal web pages may be as simple as a single page or may be as elaborate as an online database with gigabytes of data. Many Internet service providers offer a few megabytes of space for customers to host their own personal web pages. The term or expression database originated within the computer industry. ... A gigabyte (derived from the SI prefix giga-) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one billion (short scale, meaning a thousand million) bytes. ... In general, data consist of propositions that reflect reality. ... An Internet service provider (abbr. ... A megabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to exactly one million bytes. ...

The content of personal web pages varies and can, depending on the hosting server, contain anything that any other websites do. However, typical personal web pages contain images, text and a collection of hyperlinks. Many can contain biographical information, résumés, and blogs. Many personal pages will include information about the author's hobbies and pastimes, and information of interest to friends and family of the author. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In common usage, an image (from Latin imago) or picture is an artifact that reproduces the likeness of some subject—usually a physical object or a person. ... A hyperlink, or simply a link, is a reference in a hypertext document to another document or other resource. ... This is an article on biographies. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This article is about pastimes. ... Friends. ... A family in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 1997 A family consists of a domestic group of people (or a number of domestic groups), typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by analogous or comparable relationships — including domestic partnership, cohabitation, adoption, surname and (in some cases) ownership (as occurred in the...

Motivations

Many people maintain personal web pages because they are the most effective medium to express their opinions or creative endeavours that, otherwise, simply would not have an outlet. These types of sites may contain short fiction such as short stories or samples of artwork. Other netizens view the concept of a personal web pages with a more metaphysical bent, placing value in the concept of owning space in and "residing" in cyberspace and on the World Wide Web. This can also extend to the ownership of personal domain names and the associated personal web pages and e-mail addresses connected to those domains, although with the advent of affordable web hosting fewer people own or manage their own personal servers. Currently, the vast majority of casual internet users tend to utilize personal web pages included in the free services provided by social networking sites such as MySpace and Blogger. Blogging is an emerging trend and has simplified the process of creating a space of one's own. Fiction (from the Latin fingere, to form, create) is storytelling of imagined events and stands in contrast to non-fiction, which makes factual claims about reality. ... This article is in need of attention. ... The Mona Lisa Although today the word art usually refers to the visual arts, the concept of what art is has continuously changed over centuries. ... A Netizen (a portmanteau of Internet and citizen) [also known as a cybercitizen] is a person actively involved in online communities. ... Plato and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome). ... It has been suggested that Virtual world be merged into this article or section. ... The term domain name has multiple related meanings: A name that is entered into a computer (e. ... An -mail address identifies a location to which e-mail messages can be delivered. ... Web hosting is a service that provides individuals, organizations and users with online systems for storing information, images, video, or any content accessible via the Web. ... Wikimedia servers architecture The term Web server can mean one of two things: A computer that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients, which are known as Web browsers, and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are Web pages such as HTML documents and... A social network service is social software specifically focused on the building and verifying of social networks for whatever purpose. ... MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ... Blogger is a weblog publishing system owned by Google since 2003. ...

Official celebrity sites

Many celebrities, (examples include actor William Shatner, author Stephen King, and singer Barbra Streisand), have websites. Were their owners not famous, these sites would generally be considered personal web pages. The celebrity status of the subject and the existence of separate fan-created sites (over which the celebrity in question has no direct control) leads a personal site authorized by the celebrity and maintained by an individual or company directly associated with the celebrity to be labeled an "official website." This designation is often a seal of approval and an assurance to the public that the information provided on the site (including press releases, tour dates, and promotional materials) has been authored or approved by the celebrity in question. Some celebrities involved in criminal and civil trials, such as pop star Michael Jackson and media mogul Martha Stewart, establish official websites to issue statements to the press and to respond to statements and press releases issued by the prosecuting officials. Megastar redirects here. ... William Bill Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is an Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning Canadian actor, who gained fame for his starring role as Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the television show Star Trek from 1966 to 1969 and in seven of the subsequent movies. ... Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author best known for his enormously popular horror novels. ... Barbra Streisand (born April 24, 1942 as Barbara Joan Streisand), is an Academy Award-winning American singer, theatre and film actress, composer, liberal political activist, film producer and director. ... A fansite or fan site, is a website created and maintained by the fans or devotees interested in a celebrity or a particular cultural phenomenon. ... A news release or press release is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as having news value. ... For other persons named Michael Jackson, see Michael Jackson (disambiguation). ... Martha Stewart (born Martha Helen Kostyra on August 3, 1941) is an American business magnate, author, editor, former stock broker, model, homemaking advocate and a convicted felon. ...

Most celebrity sites are created and maintained by marketing and web professionals employed by the celebrity or the celebrity's publicist; however, some celebrities, such as film director Roger Avary, actor Wil Wheaton, and video game developer John Romero, maintain their own official sites without professional help, although many of them still use third-party templates and blogging software. A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, or for a work such as a book or movie. ... Roger Avary, photographed for Score Magazine at the Hotel Costes K, Paris. ... Richard William Wil Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972 in Burbank, California) is an American writer, actor, and geek icon. ... Namcos Pac-Man was a hit, and became a cultural phenomenon. ... Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967) is a well-known game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. ... It has been suggested that Online diary be merged into this article or section. ...

Sites of academics

Academic professionals (especially at the college and university level) are often given space for creating and storing personal web documents, including personal web pages, on the sites of their employers. Web Document is a extended (and more informal) concept for web page, to be protocol independent and format independent. ...

Criticisms

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, takes a dim view of personal web pages. He once said, "They may call it a home page, but it's more like the gnome in somebody's front yard than the home itself." Berners-Lee's personal web pages are located within the World Wide Web Consortium's website. Sir Tim Berners-Lee Sir Tim (Timothy John) Berners-Lee, KBE (TimBL or TBL) (b. ... WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet. ... The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web (W3). ...

A common pejorative term for a personal web page is vanity site. This term is often used by other internet users who consider personal web pages with no real practical purpose or useful content to be pathologically narcissistic and a waste of bandwidth^{[citation needed]}. Also, since many personal web pages are produced by individuals who have limited experience with HTML and graphic design, often these sites are created with WYSIWYG HTML editors (like Microsoft Office FrontPage or site-specific Web templates) and clipart graphics. This leads to what many consider to be poorly-designed, amateurish, and monotonous sites^{[citation needed]}. Because most personal websites are ultimately unprofitable they are often hosted for free in exchange for advertisements being placed on the web site. Hosting companies encourage their customers to upgrade to paid hosting to remove the adverts and for certain privileges such as server-side scripting. These criticisms were most notably leveled at the personal homepages created by users of free web hosting services such as GeoCities, Angelfire, and Tripod.com in the mid to late 1990s. Some fear that social networking sites and products such as Google Page Creator will revive this trend. A word or phrase is pejorative if it implies contempt or disapproval. ... This article is about narcissism as a word in common use. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... HTML, short for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for the creation of web pages. ... Saul Basss poster for the film The Man with the Golden Arm - a highly regarded work of graphic design. ... WYSIWYG (IPA Pronunciation [] or []), is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, used in computing to describe a system in which content during editing appears very similar to the final product. ... An HTML editor is a software application for creating web pages. ... Microsoft FrontPage is a WYSIWYG HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft for the Windows operating system. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Categories: Stub ... Look up amateur in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Profit, from Latin meaning to make progress, is defined in two different ways. ... Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ... Server-side scripting is a web server technology in which a users request is fulfilled by running a script directly on the web server to generate dynamic HTML pages. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Yahoo! GeoCities is a free webhosting service founded by David Bohnett and John Rezner in late 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet. ... Angelfire, an Internet venture offering free space for Web sites, was long known for providing advertising-free hosting, was later bought by search engine company Lycos. ... Tripod. ... For the band, see 1990s (band). ... Google Page Creator is a Web page editing and publishing service, developed by Google as part of Google Labs. ...