The webzine ExopaTerra started as an experiment conducted by a few friends. It quickly became more. Once the news of the relationship between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky broke ExopaTerra started collecting and preserving data on related Internet activity. It quickly became apparent that nothing like this had occurred in the Internet age and it deserved some attention and analysis. It was also clear that Monica Lewinsky was being abused and exploited on the Internet by pornographers, mainstream media, and hateful individuals.
One of the big tasks was to determine how fast and how many search engine entries would appear when searching on Monica Lewinsky’s name and the nature of those entries. The search engine entry count was conducted daily for several months and in the second half of 1998 just after major events. The details about web traffic, downloads, web technologies used and other odds and ends presented later in this paper came from press releases put out by the various companies or media outlets mentioned.
The press releases were readily available and found through web searches or subscriptions to press release websites. All the organizations involved in the Internet frenzy took as much advantage as they could of the scandal and were achieving a lot of bragging rights about their accomplishments and achievements. In fact, one press release distributor started rejecting releases with Monica Lewinsky content because they felt that the topic was not news worthy.
There were dozens and dozens of web polls about the scandal and those results are not included in this presentation. As popular as the polls were, some getting thousands of responses, there was little if any validity to the results. The results of the web polls that seemed the most legitimate are included towards the end of the paper. Web poll legitimacy was also an issue during the 2016 Presidential campaign in the United States. What the web polls do is provide website visitors the ability to participate and record their opinions or feelings. Such polls will likely remain popular well into the future and remain a fixture in publicly available social media.
There was also a considerable amount of data regarding television viewers for the various networks but that was not particularly relevant to this research except that the networks constantly pushed people to their websites during the broadcasts. Television viewership was noted after significant events during the year. Television viewership undoubtedly had some impact on web traffic.
The other thing that the ExopaTerra project did not engage in was any judgment about the scandal or the commentaries published on various websites. That was not the focus in any way; it was the dynamics and the statistics that ExopaTerra focused on observing, collecting, and preserving. There were a huge amount of disgusting things published especially by the pornographers.
Friends of the webzine ExopaTerra would also forward tidbits they found or press releases they came across regarding the topic. The monikers Tonya Jackson and Brandon L. Harris provided the front end voices for the webzine.
It became clear over time that website visitors around the world were easily driven to participate in web polls and leave notes in comment sections. Although that activity was not as interactive as present day social media applications it was definitely a sign of things to come and served as a precursor to the emergence of social media applications and sharing functions. Web communities were in their infancy and websites similar to Geocities were starting to become popular and provided an early opportunity for consumer-generated content.
News websites affiliated with broadcast or print publications were becoming incredibly popular. The websites often served as a repository for documents, articles, photos, and commentaries and provided viewers or readers an easy opportunity to get more information on the scandal without having to navigate search engines. These news websites also used exaggerated spectacular article titles and headlines to help draw visitors many of which were not very tasteful. Records on web traffic by the news websites were being broken one after another and those websites were enjoying more and more popularity as well as becoming a revenue source by serving up advertising.
The web reaction to the scandal was unique in many ways. Entrepreneurs worked to exploit the opportunity in as many ways possible especially the pornographers. The broadcast news shows and print publications did so as well. In fact it was a battle everyday for viewers and website traffic and the winners were making great gains in their popularity as well as advertising revenue. As time went on it was clear that this was one of the very first web wars.
The small websites had their own competition among themselves just as the major networks and print publications. The battle often involved seeing which website could get the highest ranking in search engines. With the exception of Yahoo which required submitting a URL and waiting for approval, the other search engines were pretty much a free for all and it was easy to submit a URL for inclusion in search results. Part of that competition involved looking at competitor’s websites and copying or mimicking descriptions and key terms.
Some of the smaller websites that posted serious commentary or data provided cross links with their competitors and the links would be mutually maintained. There developed a sense of camaraderie between those sites and there was considerable sharing of information and mutual praise for their accomplishments.
One thing is for certain, the World Wide Web was starting to mature and settle into its role in modern society. The web was not going to be viewed as just a novelty any longer and it would never be the same as it was before the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The ExopaTerra webzine traffic peaked out with about 3,000 visitors per month in the fall of 1998. Data from ExopaTerra was quoted in several master’s thesis and doctorial dissertations. The webzine also got recognition by other websites and earned a few web badges as well. The ExopaTerra series on Monica Lewinsky on the World Wide Web was mentioned in several newspaper and magazine articles including: