Lissa Daniels wanted to learn HTML -- the code that is used in Web-site design -- but six years ago she couldn't find any easy place for help. So she went to Web sites that she liked and read the ``source codes'' behind the sites. She also got help from an online friend. But, essentially, Lissa taught herself HTML.

She was 11.

Lissa, who lives in Celebration, Fla., didn't want other children to have to do all that work. Besides, she wanted to keep on learning.

So she made a Web site that explains to children how to build a site: www.lissaexplains.com. ``I did it as a tutorial for myself,'' she says.

She soon put it online and kept working to make it better. In the beginning traffic was slow, but then an Australian newspaper wrote about the site, and things picked up.

Lissa also found ways for search engines such as Google to list her site, and she went to other children's sites and signed their guest books, suggesting they visit LissaExplains.com.

Lissa is now 17, and her Web site gets 28 million page views and 5 million unique visitors each month. She just bought herself a car from her online advertising earnings and says the profits will help pay her college tuition.

Lissa is more successful than lots of young Web-site authors. But the phenomenon of personal Web sites is widespread, with thousands of young people using the Web as a diary, a notebook, a phone line and a way of communicating with friends. A lot of these sites are blogs (Web logs), where people keep an online diary of their lives.

Peter Grunwald of the research company Grunwald Associates estimates that 9 percent of children ages 9-12 have their own Web sites.

Many children learn HTML in school or in camp, or buy software to help them design pages.

Karen Rosenbaum, who runs the Technology Is Cool summer camp in Bethesda, Md., says teaching children HTML is easy. ``Even young kids can learn it in an afternoon,'' she says.

The camp tries to take kids beyond HTML to the programming with JavaScript and C++. ``We have a prejudice against making things too easy,'' she says.

Children use their sites for all kinds of things.

Alexander Ordoobadi, 12, a sixth-grader at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, used Microsoft Front Page to design a site with graphics, music and links for the homeowners association in Michigan where his parents have a summer place.

David Jaffe, a 15-year-old who attends the British School of Washington, created an animé site. He writes the words, and a friend does the drawing. They get about 500 visitors per month.

Rebecca Fleming, 12, a seventh-grader at Williamsburg Middle School in Arlington, Va., created a jokes Web site at TIC camp. Now she's working on a site about her life.

Meanwhile, Lissa Daniels spends about two hours a day on her site, updating it with new technology and answering e-mails. She has one piece of advice for people who want to build a site.

``Start out with an original idea,'' she says. It worked for her.

Source : mercurynews.com