The Internet never ceases to amaze me. The power
is enormous, the capabilities are incredible and the people I
meet are phenomenal.
A few weeks ago Joe "aka Beanie Dad" from ctoys.com
and Devin from "Beanie Universe" approached me to participate
in a program entitled "Chat with the stars!" I agreed
to meet Joe in Beanie Universes chatroom for Beanie conversation
with collectors.
The evening was an exciting one! The chat room was full and the
screen scrolled so fast that I could hardly keep up. I often felt
like I was in the race of my life! I wanted to answer as many
questions as possible and still maintain my sanity. Joe offered
up-to-date baseball scores and answered his share of questions
as well.
We had several prominent people stop by to acknowledge their presents
and offer support. Randy Jones from bbbclub.com stopped by and
offered his typical humor.
Ruby from "Ruby's Bean Patch" joined in the festivities
as well. "What A Night!"
The next day I sent Devin, the creator and webmaster of Beanie
Universe, a short note thanking him for a fun evening.
Devin and I started e-mailing each other back and forth. The more
information I learned about this fascinating kid, the more intrigued
I became.
Interview questions for Devin:
How old are you? I am 15 years old.
How do you possibly operate your site with juggling schoolwork?
Well, I go to school everyday from 7 AM-3 PM and I have
worked out a schedule
where when I get home I do my homework till around 6 PM, then
at 7 PM after I
eat dinner, I go online to update my page. It can get stressing,
but I enjoy
every moment of it. If I didn't I wouldnt have even started the
page in the
first place.
Do you have people working behind the scenes, or do you
operate the site
alone? I work totally alone on my site, but it would be nice
to have some "behind the
scenes people." HINT HINT Anyone interested? LOL :o)
How many hours a week do you dedicate to your site? I dedicate around 20 hours a week to my site, either updating
pages or
creating new features.
I am totally amazed with your site content. It offers Contest,
Trading Board, News
Flash, pricing guide, Beanies for sale and much more. How do you
obtain
your information? Thank you. I obtain my information from all over. Other
websites, magazines,
books, and any other resources I can get my hands on. A lot of
the
information also comes from my experience with beanies and insight
from
visitors. As for my features, some come to me just like that and
others I
dream up when I am bored in school, especially math class. :-)
Please describe what your "Chat With The Stars"
program is all about. "Chat With The Stars" is one of my main site
features in which I invite
various beanie celebrities to come and chat in my live chatroom
with beanie
collectors all over the world. This is a great way for collectors
to meet and
talk with the big shots in the "beanie baby universe."
Instead of going to a
show, collectors can have easy access to the internet where they
can "meet"
and chat with their favorite beanie celebrities with just one
click!
What made you come up with "Chat With The Stars"? I was in my chatroom one day and noticed that no one was
there. I checked the
chatroom out every day for a week and I never even found one person
in there.
I decided that I needed to liven up the chat situation and that's
how "Chat
With The Stars" came to be.
How many stars have you invited and which ones were the
most popular? I have invited around 30 stars to join me and 90% of them
are very happy to
come and chat with fellow beanie collectors. I appreciate how
they all take
time out of their busy schedules to join me and I am sure that
other
collectors do too. My most popular guests would have to be Mary
Beth
Sobolewski from "Mary Beth's Beanie World Monthly;"
Tiffany, Rachel, and Dawna
Foucht, authors of "Encyclobeaniea;" Joe Elliott aka
Beanie Dad, webmaster at
"CToys;" Randy Jones, webmaster at "Beanie Baby
Buddies Club;" Renee Hogan,
webmaster at "Beaniemonium;" Lisa Romaine, webmaster
at "Ruby's The Bean
Patch," and of course, the great Janie Daniels aka Ms. Janie,
author of The
Beanie Invasion.
How many people attend "Chat With The Stars" on
a average basis? I cannot exactly get a count on how many people attend
the chats each time,
but I would estimate around 50 collectors each chat. It seems
to be that the
bigger the guest, the more visitors are drawn. Some visitors never
speak out
during the chat I am told, so I never know they are there and
can't count
them. Who knows, for all I know maybe Ty Warner has been watching
in on a
chat session before!
What future plans do you have for your site? The future holds many surprises for my site, even surprises
for me! One day I
could have a regular chatroom and the next day, it could be "Chat
With The
Stars," you never know. But I do know that I will be opening
the ultimate and
hopefully largest beanie search engine (like yahoo) called Beanie
Find that
should be open by the time this article is printed. I will also
be unveiling
the Beanie Top 20, a ranking of the 20 most popular beanie baby
sites on the
net! Beanie Find can be found at http://beaniefind.hypermart.net
and the
Beanie Top 20 can be found at http://beanietop20.hypermart.net.
You never
know what other surprises I may have up my sleeve, so visit the
site
frequently for updates and new features.
Does your site prompt a lot of response "e-mail"
from kids your age? If
so, what types of things do they like to discuss? Yes, my site does prompt a lot of email from both kids
around my age and
adults. I get emails from kids telling me how much they enjoy
my site and
just yesterday I received an email from a kid who told me that
I was a "true
hero" for kids our age. When I hear that it makes me realize
what an
influence I can have on other kids my age. As for the adults,
they usually
have a more strict collector's mind and ask questions about their
beanie
oddities and the like. I also get emails from both kids and adults
who want
to become penpals with me. Meeting so many great people is what
makes my job
as a webmaster all worth while and I wouldn't give it up for a
dark blue
peanut!
Thank you very much for this opportunity. I had a lot of fun answering
the
questions.
Devin
It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to interview Devin.
I found him to be intelligent, resourceful and creative.
Kids who are eager and willing to learn always encourage me. Devin
has proved that he is both.
Please take a moment and stop by his incredible universe, rightfully
named "Beanie
Baby Universe."
I'm sure you will be just as impressed as I was.
This article was written by Janie Daniels
Commonly known as Ms. Janie on the Internet
This article is copyright registered and may not be used with
out permission.
October 28, l998 Copyright
2004 All rights reserved.
