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Posted:
07:15:40 on October 01 2001
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: TrekWeb Features
"It's been a long road..."
Written by Steve Krutzler
Before the "official" STAR TREK web site, before Cinescape Online, before the Sci-Fi Channel's online proliferation, before (and now, after) the dot-com mania that spawned countless "genre portals" like Fandom and EON Magazine, and long before fans with $35 in their pockets could register their favorite TREK writer/producer's name as their own domain, TrekWeb pioneered the online world of STAR TREK fandom. In a sea of freely-hosted and sparsely -updated web sites, TrekWeb became the first unofficial STAR TREK web site to have its own domain name -- even preceding the then-popular ST:WWW link database site.
Five years later, the site has undergone several metamorphoses and even more changes in fan opinion regarding the beleagured STAR TREK franchise, but remains at the forefront of unofficial destinations for STAR TREK fans, providing behind the scenes information, more coverage than an $8/issue Paramount print publication, and more up-to-date scoops than the studio's own web site. The last five years are even more impressive considering TrekWeb has been built entirely by its founder Steve Krutzler on his own time, his own dime, and the dedicated volunteerism of the individuals mentioned throughout (if I missed anyone, please contact me!).
A little too self-aggrandizing? Maybe so, but why not take a trip down memory lane and get yourself entered into a contest to win a cool Captain Archer NX-01 baseball cap?
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| STFCWEB: where it all began |
1996
In the summer of 1996 Steve Krutzler collaborated with Wes Mills to create an online companion to Mills's 'First Contact Newsletter'. Wes provided free hosting to the fledgling site, which eventually grew to be the number one destination for online fans regarding all the news surrounding the eigth STAR TREK feature, FIRST CONTACT. As readership grew, Steve secured the domain STFCWEB.com and continued the site until just after the release of the movie. STFCWEB was the first STAR TREK web site to have its own domain name and one of the first attempts (as far as Steve could ascertain from his survey of then-available sites) at a graphically attractive "destination" for TREK news. STFCWEB actually gained recognition for implementation of Microsoft's now-defunct Active-X answer to Sun's JAVA language and was featured at an EPCOT Innovations exhibit in Orlando, FL.
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| TrekWeb mach 1: circa 1996 |
Accidentially, Steve had registered the domain TrekWeb.com as well and when the release of FIRST CONTACT came nearer, he decided to launch an all-inclusive STAR TREK web site on the TrekWeb domain. In addition to collecting all the STAR TREK-related news items into a single page, TrekWeb became quickly known for weekly episode reviews at first written by Steve himself (in his infinitely naive wisdom) and then Steven Perry, who continued reviewing DEEP SPACE NINE and VOYAGER from 1997 until the end of the sixth season of VOYAGER in 2000 (and who is returning to review ENTERPRISE), as well as Internet publication of DS9 co-producer Ronald D. Moore's frequent question and answer sessions on the America Online bulletin boards.
Steve began TrekWeb's message board -- a crude wwwboard script -- in this first year of operation and it quickly became the most popular destination besides newsgroups for fan discussion; in fact, the board was so busy that Steve eventually had to archive postings almost every three days to keep the page size friendly for the then-dominant 28.8 modem connections of the site's visitors.
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| TrekWeb mach 2: circa 1997 |
1997
In 1997 Steve gained the volunteer assistance of a frequent visitor, Arman Assa, who as an America Online member continually kept TrekWeb apprised of the latest Ron Moore postings and the other AOL goings-on. It was also in 1997 that TrekWeb received its first major design overhaul, adopting a mimicry of the TNG-era LCARS graphics created by scenic artist Mike Okuda. The vibrantly colorful site (yellow, red, green, blue, oh my!) began to draw the attention of more and more visitors and even those behind the scenes in the STAR TREK offices.
In November of 1997, DS9 writer/co-producer Ronald D. Moore agreed to participate in an online chat at TrekWeb, in which he discussed upcoming DS9 episodes and answered fan questions and criticism. Ron even phoned Steve after the successful event and exclaimed his jubilation at an obligatory "you never should've killed Kirk!" comment from one fan in attendance.
Thanks in large part to Ron's endorsement and a little random emailing on Steve's part, DS9 and VOY co-creator Michael Piller, who had by then nearly finished writing the script for the highly anticipated ninth STAR TREK feature, agreed to take part in an online chat in December of 1997. The chat revealed several new tidits about the then-untitled INSURRECTION script and proved an important gateway to gaining chats with other TREK writers and producers (the new official Trek web site even complained to Piller's office the next morning that he had chatted at TrekWeb rather than with them). The chat also introduced Steve to a truly wonderful friend, Eric Stillwell, who has not only become a good friend but a vigorous promoter of TrekWeb at his own convention appearances around the world.
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| TrekWeb mach 3: circa 1998 |
1998
New year and another new look for TrekWeb, which sought to tone down the color somewhat and further refine the LCARS design with the Mach 3 version of the site. Steve also began his second TREK feature film site, ST-INSURRECTION.COM, which became instantly popular after TrekWeb received a note about its Michael Piller STAR TREK IX chat in the print publication Cinescape, for which Steve later freelanced an article on Internet buzz surrounding the movie. TrekWeb and ST-INSURRECTION.com were both awarded best resources for STAR TREK news by Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine in 1998.
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| ST-INSURRECTION: 1998 |
In May of this year Steve was forunate enough to visit the STAR TREK sets, including a brief photo-session in the Enterprise-E captain's chair, and to meet Michael Piller, who wrote Steve's favorite episode of TNG, "Best of Both Worlds." The year was capped off with a report of the premiere and post-party for STAR TREK: INSURRECTION in Las Vegas, NV in December, where Steve had the opportunity to attend events with the TNG cast and speak again with Michael Piller and meet others such as Lynda Foley, Andre Bormanis and Larry Nemecek who have all been supporters of TrekWeb much to Steve's appreciation. TrekWeb also came to the attention of Brannon Braga, who has since plugged the site at appearances and visited often (thanks to you as well, Brannon!)
The year also saw additional online chats with Ronald D. Moore, Michael Piller, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Bryan Fuller, Bradley Thompson, and Ira Steven Behr.
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| TrekWeb mach 4: circa 1999 |
1999
In 1999 another AOL correspondant, David Harkey, helped collect news around the Internet and even wrote a section on "Scriptwriting for STAR TREK" for aspiring fans interested in pursuing Paramount's now-suspended Open Script Submission Policy. Additionally, Derek Wry merged his Vulcan Cafe spoiler site with TrekWeb and began supplying the site with the inside scoops that he once posted on his own site. Gustavo Leao, long an avid visitor to the site came on as a full-time editor, tracking down STAR TREK news from all over the Internet and posting directly to TrekWeb; Gustavo works with TrekWeb to this day!
TrekWeb's Mach 3 design gained a sufficient revamp to consider it the fourth incarnation of the site and a long-time friend of Steve's, Jason Boxman, jumped onboard with assistance that changed TrekWeb forever. Reviewer Steve Perry was also able to review the script to the DS9 finale "What You Leave Behind" several weeks before the episode aired.
Jason had been working on writing his own PERL applications and in the summer of 1999 implemented his own story-writing software program that greatly reduced the time needed to post the increasing amount of daily news stories--and from any computer with an Internet connection. Jason's software eventually evolved to allow commenting funtionality for users to directly react to news stories.
Bradley Thompson, Armin Shimmerman, David R. George III, Eric Stillwell, Jay Chattaway, Bryan Fuller, Josepha Sherman, Susan Shwartz, John Ordover, and Lolita Fatjo also joined the fans online at TrekWeb.
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| TrekWeb mach 5: circa 2000-present |
2000
At Steve's insistence, Jason wrote and successfully implemented a Bulletin Board function to his software that was already managing TrekWeb's content and Talkback features in order to replace the inefficient wwwboard and its short-lived MIVA language succesor. But as traffic continued to increase and virtual host resources became maxed, Steve returned from his May Bahamas vacation to the utter realization that TrekWeb needed a new home. Digging deeper into his pocket, though the site had from time to time begun to pay for itself through advertising, Steve moved the site to a dedicated server in the summer of 2000. In Fall of this year, Steve implemented the final design change to date and the Mach 5 version of TrekWeb began. Nicholas Roche began submitting TREK memorabilia reviews for TrekWeb in 2000.
Long-time bulletin board poster and passionately opinionated writer O. Deus took over for Steve Perry in an interim basis through the end of VOYAGER's sixth season and its series finale "Endgame" in 2001 by providing sometimes controversial and always hotly debated reviews of the waning fourth TREK series.
As the Paramount PR department became more of a nuisance, online chats began to wane as well, but not before Bryan Fuller and Tim Russ joined us online as the final season of VOYAGER got underway.
By this time, anticipation and excitement had begun to arise about the fifth STAR TREK series, then under development by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga...
2001
As the grand finale of STAR TREK: VOYAGER approached, TrekWeb conducted an interview with Robert Picardo and Robert even recorded an audio plug for the site. Ken R. Miller began writing TREK game reviews for the site and Lee Jamilkowski became an editor tracking down and posting stories as his time allows in 2001.
The speculation finally ended over the long-rumored STAR TREK prequel series and ENTERPRISE went before the cameras in May of this year. Interest steadily rose and traffic increased as the news on the series unfolded and eventually premiered last week--record traffic at the same time that the dot-com bust has rendered advertising revenues to a bare minimum, forcing Steve to once again reach into his ever-shrinking pocket to sustain the site for what will hopefully be more than another five years. Steve also re-launched the TrekWeb bulletin board as the STAR TREK BBS and started the site's ENTERPRISE section at STENTERPRISE.com.
And thanks to the most wonderful woman in the world, Brittani, without whose support, patience, and love TrekWeb could not continue.
Win Archer's NX-01 Baseball Cap!
To celebrate TrekWeb's five years of trekking the 'net, and in conjunction with the Star Trek: Communicator, we're giving away four authentic NX-01 baseball caps like those worn by Scott Bakula in the new STAR TREK series ENTERPRISE! These will be available for purchase from the Communicator soon!
To enter, simply provide your name and a valid email address. We will draw the winners randomly from all entries received at the end of the month and announce the winners here at TrekWeb. After pressing "enter" you'll return to the TrekWeb front page. Thanks for everyone's support over the last five years and beyond!
