Website goes around Alaska - literally

The Internet has entered another dimension.

No longer will all browsers be content with static pictures. Forget flashing icons and rotating arrows. And dont plan on sitting still.

Lisa Wehrs site, www.360alaska.com, is one of a handful of new sites that features pictures you can scroll through for a complete 360-degree view of where the picture is taken from. Its almost like being there.

The Willow resident owns Alaska Web Art, which shes operated out of her home for the last year. After creating websites for her approximately 200 customers, Wehr said, she decided she wanted to do something of her own. And she wanted it to be something completely different.

So Wehr who has a degree in art from college and a background in marketing, specializing in commercial advertising photography grabbed her camera and set out.

The idea of using Alaska photos, she said, came as she was driving in her car on the way to Anchorage. Many of her clients are involved with travel or tourism, but she happened to hear on the radio that most people like to stay home when on vacation.

I thought, if theyre at home, most people are likely to be on a computer at some point … so how do we bring Alaska to them? she said.

Wehr says she didnt want to use video to do that it had already been done a lot, and furthermore, video can take a long time to download on slower computers.

I had just seen 360s (photos). They were just beginning to appear on the Net, she said. So, as she had done when first starting up her business, Wehr taught herself the technology.

Wehr wont give away her trade secrets, but she did explain that the 360-degree pictures shown on her website are produced by taking a series of photos of an area and shifting the tripod just a bit with each shot. And thats the easy part, she said, although it not as easy as one might think.

Remember, things in nature move, she said. So sometimes it takes a few turns around to get the complete shot.

Then, Wehr uses Java script to assemble the photos into a 360-degree panorama.

Visitors to Wehrs site will notice one thing right away the absence of those annoying banner and pop-up ads that seem to plague website these days.

Everywhere I go I see banner ads and things pushed down my throat, Wehr said. So the question became how to make a commercial site without being commercial?

Wehr solved that by adding a section called Popular Tours. Tour companies such as ERA Aviation, Kenai Fjords Tours and Stan Stevens Cruises pay Wehr to advertise their brochures in this section. Visitors to the site can click on the brochures to download them or request them to be mailed to them. It helps pay for the site.

But panoramas and brochures are not all the site offers. Visitors can send free Alaska postcards by e-mail to other web users. Theres a large childrens section, with an interactive journey called Binkys Great Adventure, the Planet Alaska puzzle game and printable pages of Binky the Beaver and other characters to use for coloring.

Finally, Wehr gives something to her visitors. Theres a section where Wehrs 360-degree photos of Alaska can be downloaded as screen savers that automatically scroll across the screen.

If Wehr is generous, perhaps its because she feels she has been given so much. Her business is booming she is planning to move into office on Main Street in Wasilla soon, and she loves her job, which has given her a lot of time to spend with her family.

Im really blessed, Wehr said. Im in my own little niche.

Photos: Willow resident Lisa Wehr designed a new website that offers more than average Alaska photos.

Photos by KRISTEN SEINE.