My Outer Space

Space: The Lonesome Frontier – A Brief Look at William Shatner’s Myouterspace.com

By

Racan Souiedan

After hearing so much lately about the legendary William Shatner’s newest venture, Myouterspace.com, I decided to take a look for myself in the hope of discovering what the actor behind Captain Kirk and T.J. Hooker could bring to the already crowded realm of online social media. According to him, Myouterspace.com is a social networking site for science-fiction lovers that provides a community for directors, producers, and writers to share their talents and resources. By joining ‘planets’ and ‘starships’ fans are supposedly given the opportunity to collaborate on projects and see their efforts through to completion.

My five-minute mission into the universe of Myouterspace.com gave me enough of an insight to determine that the site already appears to be flaming out faster than the Genesis Planet. I watched a “Message From the Admiral,” that featured William Shatner appearing in hologram form amidst a space station and starships that would have looked comfortably at home in a screensaver. The ‘governors’ of the planets, which are called Creatia, Anteros, Orpheus, Sirius, Triton, and Zara, all appear to in actuality reside in Afghanistan, and have neglected to log into the site for over a hundred days, which led me to the inescapable conclusion that the Myouterspace United Planets has failed state written all over it. The starships were no more active, with most of the captains also hopelessly marooned in Afghanistan and apparently bereft of web access. In fact, Myouterspace.com seemed so desolate and devoid of life that I found myself pining for the camaraderie and companionship of a good black hole.

At the end of the stardate, Myouterspace.com has plenty of potential to serve science-fiction fans in a positive way, by helping them to collaborate and share ideas together, but the site desperately requires the kind of leadership that a busy Hollywood actor and admitted workaholic simply can’t provide. Furthermore, the page’s aimless and confusing layout will only serve to frustrate those genuinely interested in becoming involved and participating on projects in-development. Don’t let the planets and starships fool you: keep your feet planted on terra firma.

Tags: captain kirk, my outer space, racan, starships, william shatner