Another Successful Site

If Happy Puppy is a lesson in how some people manage to make money on the Internet, Jon Peterson's World Wide Web site is a lesson in how the Web can pay in other ways, even as Peterson himself still hopes someday to profit.

Peterson's site, w3art at http://w3art.com, brings together a variety of Los Angeles-based artists who wouldn't otherwise achieve this level of exposure. There are lots of art sites on the Net, but I was struck by the freshness and variety of the work here. Many of the artists live and work downtown, which isn't surprising given that Peterson is a founder and former president of DADA, the Downtown Arts Development Assn.

Peterson says that based on data from his Web server, fully half the visitors to w3art are from Europe. Peterson, an artist and loft developer, is hoping that down the road, sites such as his will be able to charge artists a small percentage of any sales arising from contacts made through the site. The main thing is for the road to get wider; more bandwidth will make it possible for infinitely more people to encounter art, wherever it--or they--happen to be located physically.