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HTML for Dummies: 13-Year-Old Girl Creates Web Site to Explain Language of the Internet

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Teenagers with Web sites are about as common nowadays as Britney Spears CDs. But the girl you're about to meet has a Web site that may really floor you.

LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, she's only 13 years old, but she knows the Web and she knows how to describe what's going on to even moms and dads who can learn a little something.

Here's CNN technology correspondent Marsha Walton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSHA WALTON, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Like a lot of teenagers, Alyssa Daniels is hanging out with her friends this summer, swimming, checking out a computer show, working on her Web site -- not just any Web site. How many hits does she get?

ALYSSA DANIELS, WEB DESIGNER: Five-hundred-thousand a month.

WALTON (on camera): Say that again.

DANIELS: Half a million. Right now, I have it in English and French, and I'm translating it into Spanish. I'm having some people help me with that.

WALTON (voice-over): The site unlocks the secrets of HTML, the language of the Internet.

DANIELS: I noticed that I had a really hard time learning HTML because there was no HTML help sites out there. So I decided to make one.

WALTON: She explains the code that creates the animations, the text and the colors of a Web page.

DANIELS: So if you wanted blue text, you would look and you would find, like, 00CCFF and put that number and -- those numbers and letters into the code, and it turns your text blue.

WALTON: Alyssa's school environment is unique. It's in Celebration, Florida, a high-tech city created by Disney.

DANIELS: Celebration is really different. It's like a real community. Everyone knows everyone.

WALTON: Her teacher says that's what the Internet is making possible for the global community.

SCOTT MURI, TECHNOLOGY TEACHER: When I was growing up, my circle of communication were those people that lived right around me. Alyssa is -- she communicates with people around the world.

WALTON: While she's not yet one of those dot.com billionaires, the banner ads that sponsor her site are lucrative.

DANIELS: I'm making a lot for a 13-year-old.

WALTON: So what's the secret of a great Web site?

DANIELS: It has to be an original idea. That's what makes you or breaks you, really. You should always try something new, and this is definitely new to a lot of people.

WALTON: Because, sometimes, the only way to get something done is to jump into the deep end.

Marsha Walton, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATERS: And you can check out Alyssa on the Web. Maybe you'll learn something. Here's the address: www.lissaexplains.com.

ALLEN: And note that's "Lissa" with two "S"s. Good for her.

WATERS: That's computer language.

ALLEN: Right.

WATERS: OK.

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