Only a few of us actually post, which is quite normal - just look at Club Keanu's forum, where there isn't a lot of activity considering the number of members.

It would be fun, though, to know the total number of members who are regular/semi-regular visitors, and how many lurkers hits there are on a daily basis. Not that it matters much, but visitor stats have always held some fascination for me. My own site back in the 90s, which only contained articles, had some amazing hit counts for a site those days. The site was even mentioned in a Singaporan magazine as "cutting edge" (or something to that effect). That was really cool.

As of September 2009, that had increased to 368. So far out of the Keanu sites, KeanuConnection gets the most visitors - mostly because it's part of a network of fansites and benefits from all the affliates and linking; and then Keanu-Reeves.net, because of its Google position and how it's the first Keanu fansite that pops up in searches for 'Keanu Reeves' (Keanu Connection is second, then KeanuWeb even though it's dead), then CK, then here.

http://www.websiteoutlook.com/

^ the numbers there are slightly different, but my own webhost stats are probably more accurate and that's where I got the 368 figure from. But a fair proportion of that is googlebots and spambots and other bots.

For WINM, the bulk of the hits seem to be coming from music sites linking to my Dogstar MP3 files. :\\ That and the scripts, and people who got here via the Keanu entry on Wikipedia.

(The most common search query leading here is 'is keanu reeves straight'. Other contenders: 'keanu and sex', 'is keanu reeves homosexual', 'keanu and drugs', 'keanu reeves gay marriage' and other similar. Now and then 'magazine articles on keanu reeves' and 'keanu reeves articles' appear, which make me slightly happier)

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The site was even mentioned in a Singaporan magazine as "cutting edge" (or something to that effect). That was really cool.

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Awesome! Was it the Keanu site?

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Yeah, it was The Norwegian Wood, my non-dead-tree collection of articles about Our Man. I made it in 1994, I think. It was the first-ever Keanu fansite without his name in the URL.

KeanuWeb (I think that was its name) was the biggest fansite back in the mid-90s. It was owned and maintained by a guy named Eric Perkins; I met him in Chicago while Keanu was there making Chain Reaction. Very nice guy. Eric, that is. I only exchanged two-three words with Our Man Himself, and that wasn't enough to establish his level of niceness. But I talked to his stunt double, and he was really friendly. I even got to test-sit on one of Keanu's stunt bikes (and I have a photo to prove it).

What I remember the most about Chicago was how bitterly cold it was. Can't imagine why Our Man wants to make Henry's Crime in Buffalo in the middle of winter.

As for the stats and all that, I must say I'm glad that WINM isn't part of any network of fansites. It's actually a bit like the Garden of Keanadu mailing-list was in the beginning: not so easy to find, but very nice once you're in.

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It was the first-ever Keanu fansite without his name in the URL.

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Also, which Singaporean magazine was that? Was it a feature on websites in general, or fansites, or Keanu?

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KeanuWeb (I think that was its name) was the biggest fansite back in the mid-90s. It was owned and maintained by a guy named Eric Perkins

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Do you still have the photo of you on the stunt bike?

Oh, and why was it called the Garden? I've always wondered about that. And what with the Garden and the Norwegian Wood... the tree theme is kind of strong. :\\

By the time I joined, it had expanded into a sort of bowl-shaped valley with a river (the river River) running through it. We had a cinema inside a hollow tree; on the outside it was a regular tree, but on the inside it was a huge movie theatre. And no, this was before the critics started calling Our Man "wooden" so it had no connection to that. We also had an ice skating rink, and a bar. We'd have virtual parties in the bar, where we e-mailed back and forth (this was pre online live chats rooms, except for IRC). We'd describe what we were doing ("Hey Samantha, would you please mix me a Bloody Mary?"), and some members had particular jobs/task. Samantha was our barkeeper, I was the keeper of the Norwegian Wood, somebody else was the bar's swizzle stick counter, and we also had people manning the ice skating rink's zamboni and the movie theatre's machinery, etc.

As for the name of the Norwegian Wood, it was actually a reference to a music festival here in Norway, which in turn got its name from the Beatles song.

Ani, it's possible that it was the Etc mag that mentioned my site. It wasn't part of an article, though, it was just a blurb about this cool website. I suspect that someone at Etc was a Keanu fan...

Yes, I still have the photo of me on Keanu's matte black Kawasaki. It's around here somewhere, dug out of one of my many Ke-boxes. I think there might actually be a JPG of it on my old computer. Will have to check it out, I guess, next time I kick the old heap into something resembling life.

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the river River

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Oh man... the whole Garden thing sounds so awesome.

I went to check out KeanuNet on the Internet Wayback Machine and came across this snippet:

My friend Chris tells me there is a Keanu Street in Hawaii. It's in the Waialae-Kahala area...right around the corner from the Jolly Roger Drive-In (how Hawaiian)....just off Kamehameha Highway...not far from the intersection of Kam Hwy and Waialae Avenue. It's a tiny street...a cul-de-sac, actually. This street wasn't named for our Keanu, however.

If any of you ever go to Hawaii, find that street and take a picture. ;D

And:
Another interesting tidbit, also from Chris...Keanu pronounces his name the way it is commonly pronounced on the islands...but the correct Hawaiian pronounciation is Kay-ah-nu instead of Key-ah-nu. Many of the Hawaiian words have incorrect pronounciations in general usage.

Are you still in contact with Eric? There's the address ep@aok.com listed...

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Are you still in contact with Eric? There's the address ep@aok.com listed...

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I guess I forgot to answer this. I'm not in contact with him but I e-mailed him last autumn just to hear if he's still out there. He is, and he answered.

We're 100 members at WINM now! O' jubel (cheers of joy, pronounced "youbel") as we say here in Norway. But how many of the registered members actually use the site? I'd like to know how many we "really" are here. It feels like we're a small group of die-hard fans hiding in a secret cave in the moss-overgrown remains of the Garden Of Keanadu, grinning insanely at how we manage to stay below the radar, smack in the middle of all the other fansites. :-)

actually, we're 99 members + Bobby ;)

And yes, I do agree about this being a "pocket of sanity", and our own Construct. Definitely. Caves are for bears, and I personally prefer to keep at a respectful distance from them.

I don't really know anyone from that time. We would chat but it was different then, cause people kept things separate - RL vs VL.

The only thing that makes me sad is how many websites that have gone up and down over the years. It was like losing a friend.

Amen for radar detection. ;)

as for the websites going up and down... guess this is the nature of the internet. Reality, even the virtual one, is impermanent ;)

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I was born in 1989. :\\

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Well, we all gotta start somewhere/somewhen. ;-)