Native Web sites gaining interest, visits

"The Internet might not be the pinnacle for Indian people but what it does is allow us to have communication and unity," said Victor Rocha, Webmaster of pechanga.net, a California-based Native news site. "Tribes are connecting."

Rocha's Web site and the Nebraska-based Indianz.com are two of the most popular Web sites among dozens offering Native news, which fill a void created by the lack of a daily Native newspaper.

Together, the two sites reported nearly 600,000 page views last month.

"We try to keep track of the things we think are important," said Acee Agoyo, Webmaster of Indianz.com, arguably the country's busiest Native-news Web site. "We know the people who read our site are professionals."

Said Rocha: "I used to think there would be no news about us. We're a bigger part of this picture than we've been led to believe. My audience shows just how hungry people are for discourse on complicated Native American issues."

And the audience contains more than Native users. Those who seek Native news come from an array of backgrounds, including educational, professional and governmental agencies.

"I do check Victor's Web site every single day to see what's going on out there both as an attorney and when I used to be the assistant secretary for Indian affairs," said Kevin Gover, a Washington, D.C., lawyer. "It's a great source of information about what's going on all across the country in Indian affairs, and I rely on it very heavily."

Each weekday, from opposite ends of the country, Agoyo in Cambridge, Mass., and Rocha, in Los Angeles, comb cyberspace newspapers searching for Native-interest stories. Both provide links to those stories from their sites.

They don't reach everybody. While many urban Natives - about 60 percent of the indigenous population - likely have access to computers, only 9 percent of reservation homes have personal computers. Many couldn't connect from home even if they did have computers: 53 percent of reservation homes don't have phone lines, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

While the moccasin telegraph has traditionally helped spread news by word of mouth, the Internet links indigenous people in ways never seen before, said Ishgooda, Webmaster of nativenewsonline.org, in Riverview, Mich.

"Before it was mouth to mouth," she said. "Now it's keyboard to keyboard."

At one end of the keyboard is 27-year-old Agoyo, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate who connects readers to daily news while also providing original stories and related links.

After Indianz.com debuted in August 1999, it quickly gained national attention. By January 2000, USA Today recommended it to readers as a "hot site" for those interested in Native issues.

Indianz.com was founded by Agoyo, from New Mexico's San Juan Pueblo, and Mia Merrick, a Harvard graduate from Nebraska's Omaha tribe who lives in Walthill.

Last year, Indianz.com merged with AllNative.com, a cyberspace retail store owned by Ho-Chunk Inc., a multimillion-dollar corporation owned by the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.

Agoyo works with a team, including Merrick in Nebraska and Todd York in Oklahoma City. Although they don't see themselves as journalists, Agoyo and York, also an MIT graduate, occasionally serve as reporters, covering everything from meetings to entertainment to Senate hearings.

"We think we have the luxury of not being a traditional newspaper," said Agoyo, dismissing thoughts of a 9-to-5 job and someone else's deadlines.

Said York: "What newspapers can't do is provide you the background on the story."

Hence, Indianz.com provides a trove of links, including historical and legal documents, to help others understand Indian Country. In the beginning, Agoyo and Merrick looked at the competition and hoped to get 500 visitors a month. They quickly exceeded expectations, with visitors clicking on stories some 465,000 times last month.

"The thing that amazes me more than anything: Everywhere I go, people have heard of Indianz.com," said Erin Morgan, operations director of AllNative.com, which shares banner advertising space on Indianz.com, its sister Web site under Ho-Chunk Inc.

Last year, AllNative.com sales revenue topped $3 million. Its retail store and warehouse, both in Winnebago, boast more than 1,000 Native-made or Native-related items including art, music, jewelry and blankets.

AllNative.com celebrated its third anniversary April 1. Both sites are undergoing redesigns that will be unveiled later this month. Expect more tribal casino and gaming news, said Agoyo.

Tribal casino news is Rocha's forte.

Rocha, 39, a member of California's Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, started pechanga.net as a way to disseminate news to California tribes about Proposition 5, the measure approved by California voters in 1998 to permit gambling among the state's tribes.

Pechanga.net remains a ripe source for tribal casino news, with users clicking on stories 127,000 times last month.

While Rocha remains a one-man clearinghouse for Native news, connecting readers to mainstream newspapers, he also creates space for reader dialogue on current issues.

A redesign is also in the works, something he hopes to accomplish by year's end.

It's all part of an effort to meet demand, he said: "People are ravenous for information. We are at the beginning of new revolution."

Reach Jodi Rave Lee at 473-7240 or jrave@journalstar.com .