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Fake Kanye West Twitter Removed
An apparently fake Twitter account claiming to be Kanye West came to the attention of Kanye West during Stephen Colbert's plot to knock Kanye West from the #1 slot on iTunes. Kanye West noticed a tweet related to Operate Humble Kanye on the @kanyewest Twitter account and said that's not me on his blog. Rolling Stone reports the @kanyewest Twitter has been removed.
The Kanye West Twitter page has since been taken down. With past Twitters like "and I just keep doing my thing…putting out G.O.O.D. music and cultivating my craft" and thanking America for electing Barack Obama, the page had all the makings of another stump for which West could shout from, except for one major detail: It wasn't updated nearly enough for it to actually belong to West, who posts upwards of ten times a day on his blog.
The fake Kanye is gone but why isn't the real Kanye twittering. Some of his posts are tweet-sized anyway. One would think he could at a minimum at least hook his blog feed up to Twitter.
Fashionista reports that fashion designer and icon Diane von Furstenberg will blogging on her DVF.com website on a new blog called Inside DVF.
Now? DVF.com is launching a blog tomorrow, called Inside DVF, to be part of DVF.com.
The blog will be updated daily and will include news, shots of new items, horoscopes, cultural advice, and personal photos and posts by the Diane herself so you can die of envy over her travels and day-to-day life.
It's makes sense for fashion designers to blog - it should help them get more attention focused on their collections. Any fashion designer blog will obviously need lots of photographs. (via The New York Observer)
Following the launch of her steamy new video, Britney Spears has come out with a revamped britneyspears.com website. The website includes a blog about Britney Spears updated by Team Britney and guest bloggers.
The new site also includes video blog posts from Britney Spears. Here's the first one where she explains what her new website will offer. Britney says, "I'm taking you where no paparazzi lense ever could. I'll be updating the site all the time with new videos, photos, and lots of other cool stuff." (via Pleasant Morning Buzz)
Here's another entry in the celebrity blogging department. There is a blog about Jennifer Lopez training for a triathlon on Self magazine's website. Lopez says she doesn't expect to win the triathlon but she does expect to finish. The money she raises will go to the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.
"I've always loved sports. I used to be on a track team in school. And that's probably why I can think to myself now, Yeah, I can do this, which is totally crazy! The team was a big part of my life back then and taught me so many things. When I look back on my life and what I'm able to do, it's partly because of that early training. It taught me discipline, how to be committed, about striving to win, stamina, all that good stuff.
"The sports training also helped me deal with losing and rejection and all the things you go through when starting out in show business. I think that's why I was able to bounce back all the time. With track, I didn't let anything get to me. I would just think, Whatever, tomorrow's the next race, and I'm going to train harder and win next week. And I won maybe 70 or 80 medals and trophies over those years. I should dig those out!
"Now I've come full circle. I don't expect to win this race; my goal is to finish. I'll probably end up crawling across the finish line, but I'll do it!"
She certainly sounds determined. The blog entries don't all appear to be written by Jennifer Lopez but the blog is focused on her and about her training. It includes tips from Lopez and her trainers. There are also photographs and videos of Lopez training for the event. (via Shopping Blog)
VH1 has launched a new celebrity gossip blog called Scandlist. The blog kicks off with a long entry that details the top 100 celebrity scandals of all time. That's a good start but will the new blog be able to compete? It's not like there aren't already plenty of these types of blogs. That's probably why they went with the extensive top 100 celebrity scandals blog post - to give the blog a big kick-start.
VH1 already has a successful blog at blog.vh1.com covering games, music, movies and gossip. The Scandalist.com launch follows on the growth of the VH1 Blog according to VH1. A press release says the VH1 Blog will continue to live on VH1.com and will focus primarily on VH1's shows, artists and events. The press release says Scandalist.com will include up-to-the-minute celebrity photos, interactive features and gossip and entertainment news. It also says original video will eventually be incorporated into the blog posts.
"After taking a look at how quickly we were able to grow the VH1 Blog on VH1.com, we decided to look at ways we could go deeper with our blog coverage of pop culture and our VH1 shows and events separately," said Tom Calderone, President, VH1. "With a dedicated staff of writers, Scandalist.com will serve as a distinct, yet complimentary site for fans of pop culture, entertainment news and all things celebrity."
People reports that Rosie is taking the month of August off from her haiku-laden blog on Rosie.com.
"I'll take the month off and then see what it feels like to come back to it," O'Donnell told PEOPLE Wednesday after a rousing performance by Rosie's Broadway Kids ins Manhattan.
She wrote this haiku about her upcoming blogging break.
i am taking off august
in blog-ville
2 c if i can
rosie unplugged
happy summer peeps
peace in
peace out
Sometimes a little blogging break can help a blogger refresh but we will see if Rosie can really make it through the entire month of August without a blog post.
Paris Hilton is using her MySpace blog to counter stories about her she says are not true. Paris writes that, "These stories have gotten out of control and I want to clear some things up." In her latest post titled "Sick of Rumors," Paris says a New York Poststory that she tried to buy a dog from a pet store to use in a photo shoot is false.
Hi guys, hope you all had a great weekend! I just shot the finale for my BFF show and I can't wait for you all to see it...I'll let you all know when it premieres, it's going to be amazing and everyone did such an incredible job.
I wanted to let you know that I've been getting messages and reading stories about an incident that supposedly happened with me and a pet store: I was catching up on news last week only to read a story about me walking by some puppies for sale, and demanding that I be given a Yorkie puppy to be an accessory for a photo shoot. These stories have gotten out of control and I want to clear some things up-
I wasn't looking for a new pet, I wasn't even at a photo shoot that day, (I was down the street at Benji's DCMA clothing store) and I actually have a Yorkie puppy. I love animals and the cruel things people say are not acceptable. Puppies are not accessories or toys and I love my own pets dearly--I treat them as if they were my children. Of course I support pet adoption from shelters, and I made sure that my BFF show involved a local one to spread the word about how these animals need loving owners. So it is sad that someone felt the need to invent a story about me throwing a fit for a dog that would "go with my outfit."
I have no idea where people come up with these stories and they are spreading to so many news outlets that I just have to speak my mind and clear things up, especially with my fans. I love you all and appreciate your messages, as always.
Have a great week, and I will post again soon--after wrapping the BFF show, it's on to more projects, travel and time with the people (and pets) that I love.
Xoxo Paris
Paris Hilton has 177,066 friends on her MySpace site. That's a pretty large group to turn to if you need to correct a story you think is false or misleading. Paris Hilton should really also set up a Twitter page to farther expand her reach.
Twitter is not just for bloggers and tech people anymore. Over the past few months there has been a steady migration from Facebook and MySpace. Now celebrities like John Tesh are even jumping onboard. You can find John Tesh's Twitter here. So far it just pulls in the latest updates from his blog - like this entry about how smiling is good for you. John Tesh says his blog is the place to go if you need "intelligence, inspiration and encouragement for your life." It goes to figure that his Twitter also aims to inspire you.
John Tesh started out by following lots of people at once including three people at Urlesque. Tesh may have an unflattering following-to-followers ratio right now but it will probably ultimately balance out as more Twitters subscribe to Tesh's tweets. It should be noted that there is still some doubt that this Twitter actually belongs to John Tesh. It would be a pretty boring fake with zero @replies or humorous fake tweets. If it isn't really John Tesh maybe the real John Tesh will notice and come and take it over. Others have said that if John Tesh is really on Twitter it means Twitter has jumped the shark or that it is time to move to Pownce. You can see more tweets about John Tesh's Twitter here and here.
MediaWeek reports that People.com is acquiring the Celebrity Baby Blog, a blog covering celebrity baby news, from from founder Danielle Friedland.
For the time being, celebrity Baby Blog will remain separate from People.com. In the coming weeks, the blog and People.com will begin cross-promoting each other.
People.com hopes the acquisition will grow its appeal with its largely female audience, while it plans other additions, both home grown and through acquisitions, to build traffic to the site.
There is also a post by Friedland about People.com's acquisition here on the Celebrity Baby Blog.
Vibereports that singer/songwriter Ne-Yo has turned bloggy for his upcoming album.
R&B singer/songwriter Ne-Yo has launched his very own blog called "Year of The Gentleman" to promote his album of the same title. In his blog, Ne-Yo writes about his experiences on his latest tour alongside R&B diva Alicia Keys and newcomer, Jordin Sparks. He also posts pictures with fans and writes about all of his favorite things, from cars to cologne.
The singer also gives his fans the ability to send their mothers a personalized greeting for Mother's Day, encouraging them to get "Closer" (the title of the first single off of The Year of the Gentleman) to the women who raised them.
But how close will Ne-Yo be getting with his fans through this blog? Pretty close. He has added personal pictures from his tour as well as videos. He even admits in one entry that he thinks Jordin is "kinda sexy in person."
The blog can be found on the Year of the Gentleman website. That's also the name of Ne-Yo's upcoming album. The blog includes permalinks, photos and comments. Ne-Yo blogs about his concert tour as well as some of his favorite things - such as his favorite fashions and favorite cologne.
Sorry, it's too late to send Mom a Ne-Yo Mother's Day Card -- maybe he will have a new one for Father's Day.
Can you think of anything crazier than launching a new website in 2008 without a blog? Leave it to Tom Cruise's web team to do just that. Last week the people that work for Tom Cruise (scientologists and hollywood pr experts) were busy buying up Google Adwords across the Internet to promote his new website at TomCruise.com.
ITEM: Tom Cruise is buying Google Adwords. His Scientology handlers must be working on his SEO optimization; type in "Tom Cruise" in Google Search - and his paid sponsored ads pop up at the top of the search results. It directs surfers to a new official TomCruise.com launching soon... Some of the google ads say "Get the real scoop from Tom Cruise. Stay Tuned For Official Site Launch" "The Countdown is On. TomCruise.com launches May 5th. Get the scoop!" and "The Official Site Launches Soon. You'll Never Guess What's Coming!"
Tom Cruise is clearly looking for an image makeover with this new website and the recent appearance with Oprah. The new website, which launched today, contains photos, biography, filmography as well as trailers from 27 Tom Cruise films. The site celebrates Tom Cruise's twenty-five years in the movie business.
The sad thing about this exciting new website is there isn't a blog which would have made the website much more interesting. Instead, there is a "Message From Tom" section which is similar to what other stars like Britney Spears have on their websites. The message was created in Flash. Tom Cruise's message basically says that he really enjoys making movies and he hopes to bring us yet more excellent movies. It would have been useful if bloggers could have linked people directly to this message but they can't because Tom Cruise's webmasters think Flash is more important than function.
Gawker reports that the PageSix.com gossip blog that was spun off from the New York Post's Page Six column has been shut down. The site now redirects to the Post's gossip column.
During the last internet bubble, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation used its Page Six brand to launch a new entertainment website, Pagesix.com. The property has had an even shorter life this cycle: Pagesix.com, which was largely independent of the newspaper's Page Six print column, is being shuttered immediately; it had been live only since December. The URL already redirects to the New York Post's main website, and the site's staff have had their access to email cut off. Managing Editor, David Boyle, told the site's Los Angeles staff. "Given the difficulty in the economy, it was not the right time for this launch," said Jennifer Jehn, one of the site's managers. A total of 18 editorial and support staffers will be let go and three reassigned within the New York Post.
Gawker also says the website had a day last week with over 1 million pageviews thanks to photos of Eliot Spitzer's hooker Ashley Alexandra Dupre. The site appeared to garnering a fair amount of inbound links. Technorati shows about 700 inbound links for the blog's 3-month run. But Technorati rankings are a trivial matter to a powerful media mogul like Rupert Murdoch, especially when he sees an ad spend decline on the horizon.
Murdoch, disclosing a slowdown in ad revenue at his Fox television stations and newspapers, has predicted a "temporary downturn for a year or so." Other media companies, such as the New York Times, are also suffering from the advertising downturn, and have cut costs by making piecemeal layoffs.
And so the PageSix.com site is dead and owners of competing gossip blogs can breathe a little easier - at least until Murdoch relaunches the site during the next Internet bubble.
By now everyone has heard that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught in a prostitution sting. The New York Timesreports that the prostitute Spitzer was having the secret rendezvous with is 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre. In addition to being a hooker, Ashley is also a wannabee singer and as nearly all 20-somethings do these days she has a MySpace page. The MySpace page includes a single from one of her songs called "What We Want." There is also a blog on her MySpace page. She has not been a very dedicated blogger. Her blog contains just one entry over a priod of several months. Ironically she offers some relationship advice in her only post.
If you are in a relationship, and it is "doing absolutly nothing" for you, makes you feel bad about yourself or situations, just causing unessesary drama, and ruining things that you may actually care about...why would you want that in your life?? you need to surround yourself with the people that make you feel good, and that will help you get to that next step in your life. that is what a relationship is all about...growing and moving forward.
Surround yourself around people that are making moves, and doing what "they want and love" with their lives, positive energy...thats what life is all about...living. Because if you dont, misery loves company, they will only try to bring you down with them...but the question is, are you strong enough, to not let that happen?
Its hard to see if you let it get to that point...
...and then from all those answers you have to decide if that person is worthy of being a part of "your" life....because it is your life, your show...you decide who you want the characters to be...not the other way around. Every person is different, every person has their voice...can you recognize your voice, listen to it, and stick up for it??
A shadowy group of Internet hackers called Anonymous released a video declaring war on Scientology. The video says they will destroy Scientology.
Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed. For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind--for the laughs--we shall expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form. We acknowledge you as a serious opponent, and we are prepared for a long, long campaign. You will not prevail forever against the angry masses of the body politic. Your methods, hypocrisy, and the artlessness of your organization have sounded its death knell.
Anonymous also started a DDOS attack on the Scientology website. Wired's Threat Level notes that at first Anonymous inadvertently took down the website of a school in the Netherlands.
One of the moderators on 711chan.org thought he had learned from a friend what the real server's address was on Friday.
The user, who was using the handle Splongcat, uploaded DDOS software configured with the supposedly secret address and urged others in an internet chat room to download and run the software. The software was intended to flood the specified IP address with rogue traffic in order to bring the server down.
But within minutes, users began complaining the software was crashing and others analyzed the traffic and found that the IP address didn't belong to the Church of Scientology, reporting that that the software was actually targeting a school in the Netherlands.
Immediately the IRC chat room hosted on 711chan.org (currently down) was filled with calls to stop using the program, and the 900 people in the chat room returned to their disorderly conversation about whether they should be flooding Digg with anti-Scientology links or making harassing phone calls to local Scientology branches.
A story about the Anonymous attack on eNews2.0 says the attacks were powerful enough to force Scientology to move its website to a server hosted by Prolexic Technologies. Prolexic is a company that offers protection from these types of DDoS attacks.
Anonymous generated a powerful attack against Scientology.org, which was hit with several DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks over the past few days. According to Jose Nazario, a senior security engineer with Arbor Networks, a company compiling data on Internet attacks, it seems that Anonymous' attacks flooded the Church of Scientology's web site with as much as 220 Mbps of traffic, which indicates that the group itself is based on some sort of organization.
However, shortly after these attacks, the Church seems to have moved its web site to a server hosted by Prolexic Technologies, a company specialized in protecting other companies from DDOS attacks.
Anonymous has been posting videos to a YouTube site called Chanology Project. The videos include Scientology clips about Tom Cruise and about Scientology's negative views on psychiatry and psychiatric drugs. The YouTube site also contains clips of media coverage of their DDOS attacks. The LolCruise picture below was shown in this video from Anonymous about the Scientology site being down. Anonymous is connected to the origin of the LOLCat meme going back to its first mention on
4chan.org in 2005. For more information on 4chan.org and the LOLCats see here,
here and here.
The New York Post extended its popular gossip news brand "Page Six" onto the web earlier this month with a new blog at PageSix.com. The site features a frequently updated blog, photos, videos and as the Daily Intelligencer notes Gawker-like stalker maps.
"Page Six" has made a new move in its aggressive push to take over the world and make it canoodley. They've launched the new version of PageSix.com! The site is slick, a little bit more glamorous, and a lot more bloggy. They've got feeds from other gossip sites, a running blog (which, so far, seems to have mostly party pictures and items from the print version of the column), and even Gawker Stalker Maps.
The blog is run by a team of six bloggers known as the Sixers. The blog has been popular already - it already has nearly 1,000 inbound links according to Technorati. The new PageSix.com site is seperate from the other New York Post content. The regular Page Six column by Richard Johnson continues on the New York Post.
Singer Alanis Morissette has started vlogging on her YouTube channel. She answers questions in a video interview while she's taking a walk. Some of the younger stars who established YouTube sites early on now have tens of thousands of subscribers. Ashley Tisdale of High School Musical fame has over 60,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel. Alanis just has a couple hundred so far so she has a ways to go to catch the YouTube early birds.
In Alanis' first video blog she talks about her upcoming tour and her next album. She also says she is working on a book. Watch out for that tree Alanis.
Now that Elisabeth Hasselbeck's new baby Taylor Thomas Hasselbeck is here (congrats Elisabeth!) will she keep blogging? She kept fans up-to-date with a few posts before her baby was born on her blog called Elisabeth's Baby Blog. The blog lives on Dreft.com, which is a Procter & Gamble website. Here's an excerpt from her most recent post.
Still no sign of baby #2 yet! I am having some contractions at night that make me think it may happen soon! I have been having a hard time getting out of bed… especially because I get up at least 4 times, either for the bathroom, or for Grace…
One would assume that any baby blogging deal she cut with Procter & Gamble would have her continue blogging once the baby arrived. According to E Online she will be back. E Online also wonders if she is blogging out of a desire to compete with Rosie O'Donnell.
Perhaps driven to compete with former View cohost Rosie O'Donnell (long famed for her haiku-riffic stream-of-consciousness bloggery), Elisabeth promises "12 personal stories recounting her experiences and emotions both before and after the birth of her second child, due later this month, along with photos of the new baby."
If the blog was on Elisabeth's personal website or on a blogging service like Blogger than maybe we could buy E Online's suggestion that she is trying to compete with Rosie but since the blog is on the Dreft detergent website it is much more likely that it was a financial deal. We would love to know how much The View co-star was paid for baby blogging but that information is not readily available.
PaidContent reports that CBS has bought a relatively unknown celebrity blog called Dotspotter for about $10 million. That's right. $10 million! For Dotspotter!
CBS (NYSE: CBS) has bought 10-month-old celebrity gossip blog Dotspotter, for a price of around $10 million. The rumor was first reported on Valleywag, and has also been confirmed to us by sources.
The site, based in San Francisco, was co-founded by CEO Anthony Soohoo, who is a former VP from Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO). Also read this background post from B2.0 on Dotspotter.
The price seems pretty high for a sector which is saturated with more high profile celebrity blogs/sites like TMZ.com, PerezHilton, and others...and, of course, the fact that the site was only launched mid-January this year. But one source close to the situation told us the price is not for the site itself, but the team that has built it...that may also mean there’s a heavy earn-out component, possibly. Would be interesting to see if the site lasts as a standalone brand.
Dotspotter doesn't appear to have the traffic to justify the $10 million purchase price - about 300,000 montly pageviews according to this post citing stats from Complete.com - that's $35 per pair of eyeballs. They also don't appear to have the inbound links to justify the $10 million acquisition - they have just over 330 inbound links according to Technorati but some of those have occurred over the last couple days after news about this acquisition broke.
Other blogs and bloggers are also questioning what CBS paid for this site including Profy and Mathew Ingram. The Last Podcast defends the site and says it has rapidly growing traffic. Bloggers are also reminding everyone that CBS also recently bought Wallstrip and last.fm. If you own a blog, vlog or social network selling it to CBS looks like a profitable endeavor - at least while they are trying to figure out what sticks.
To be fair Dotspotter does have a few extra features that make it more than just a regular celebrity gossip blog such as the celebrity ranker and celebrity sightings. But it still seems like a high price tag. There are many celebrity blogs out there that currently have a much bigger following than Dotspotter does.
Rapper, producer and songwriter Kanye West has started a blog on his Kanye University website. Most of his blog entries are posts of YouTube videos with a short comment. Some of his posts are videos of his songs, clips from media coverage or photos from his travels. Kanye has also discussed shoes, robots, pool parties, fashion, De La Soul and educaton. He also covers offbeat subjects including a post about a lady who falls while trying to make grapes.
It looks like the first post here was made on 8-27-07 but Kanye has picked up the pace since then. TMZ commented on Kanye's posting frequency and calls him "a regular Michael Crichton."
The hip hop artist swore off MTV after losing out yet again at the channel's Music Video Awards, and since then, he's been working overtime to post on his site. Yesterday alone, Kanye posted five times. He's a regular Michael Crichton.
What's Kanye blogging about? Everything from his fave YouTube clips (he's a big fan of Feist and Brit indie band Bat for Lashes), to his favorite sneakers. But Kanye's favorite subject? Himself, of course. The blog is chock full of pics, videos and news clips confirming Kanye as "the king of rap."
Kanye also posted a YouTube video clip of his recent skit on SNL where he poked fun at himself. Kanye clearly had the best pumpkin. Kanye's been pretty active on the Internet lately. A couple weeks ago he was helping MySpace select featured artists.
Chris Crocker quickly became one of the most well-known YouTubers when his Leave Britney Alone video hit the mainstream. Crocker's video defense of Britney's troubled performance at the VMAs has received over 8 million views. It was so popular that it was even parodied by actor Seth Green. Now Variety is reporting that Crocker has signed a deal with 44 Blue Productions that could result in Crocker's own tv show. CNET's The Social blog says Crocker was on 44 Blue's radar before his popular Britney video.
But don't hold your breath. That impassioned young fellow is Chris Crocker, a 19-year-old from Tennessee whose 15 minutes (seconds?) of fame just might not quite be over: Variety is reporting that a television production company, 44 Blue Productions, has inked a deal with him for a potential TV show. It's not totally serendipitous, as the entertainment site explained that Crocker has actually had a sizeable MySpace following for some time now, and that he's been on 44 Blue's radar for almost a year.
It isn't surprising that 44 Blue has been following him. Chris Crocker has been making popular videos on YouTube long before he became famous for the "Leave Britney Alone" video. He has a pretty funny video about MySpace's top friends lists here. Crocker's channel has over 51,000 subscribers. If Crocker gets his tv show and it is a success he might even be able to make popular celebrity blogger Perez Hilton a little jealous.
There are some events that celebrity and music bloggers cannot miss covering and Britney Spears' awful performance at the 2007 Video Music Awards is one of these events.
The vast majority of bloggers agree that Britney's performance was not good. Some say it was a bomb while others argue that it was not a total bomb. You can read some other blogger reviews here, here, here, here,
here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The song Britney sang at the VMAs was called "Gimme More." It received mixed reviews -- some people didn't care much for the song before they had even seen Britney's performance. The analysis of Britney's performance is sure to continue as more facts come in. People is already talking about how Britney is now embarrassed and Kanye West claims they were both exploited by MTV. That should keep the gossip blogs posting.
Music bloggers also regularly cover events like the Video Music Awards. MTV was smart enough to put the entire show on its website in segments which
makes it easy to link to a particular part of the show. They did claim to offer embedding but when the embed code was posted into a blog and played the video wouldn't run. Instead viewers only see a message that says the video was only available on the MTV website. When are the big media companies going to realize that if they make short video clips available properly for embedding (even with a non-annoying ad) they are going to get much more exposure than they would by only allowing the video to be seen on their website? Here's what happens if you try to embed the video clip from MTV.com that contains Britney's sad peformance. As of this writing, it only shows a message that the Britney video can only be found on MTV.com. The player then starts running other performance from the show which are halted by yet another message sending viewers to MTV.com.
If MTV is going to go to the trouble to offer embedding, make sure it works properly and isn't some kind of bait and switch trick to get people to the website. Either it's embeddable or it isn't. Don't make viewers watch an ad, then not provide the video: that's obnoxious.
MTV should have simply noted that embedding was not available for this video. The video clip of the Britney's clumsy performance also appears frequently on YouTube, but it looks like it is being removed almost as quickly as it can uploaded. You can probably still find it periodically on YouTube by plugging in a Britney VMA search. There are also embeddable clips of the performance elsewhere like here on Brightcove.
Paris Hilton has blogged (hat tip Chicago Tribune) a July 4th holiday safety tip for fans. Paris writes, "remember to be responsible and have a designated driver!"
Hey everyone! I'm back from my much needed vacation in Maui. It was so beautiful and relaxing. But its good to be home again. I just want to thank you all for your letters of love and support. I am doing my best to respond to each and every one with the letter I wrote--that message was for fans like you who have supported me through it all.
I wanted to let you all know that I'm going to be updating my myspace and writing in more cause I haven't done it in awhile. The past month has inspired me to move forward with some exciting new projects, so I will keep you all posted.
Happy 4th of July everyone, and remember to be responsible and have a designated driver! Just looking out for you all. I love you and have an amazing summer!
xoxo
Paris
Paris Hilton was given a much longer jail sentence than most people serve for similar crimes. The Tribunewrites that "the notorious party girl has since touted a new beginning, one that she says won't include going out as much." It sounds like she is trying to stick to that promise although it hasn't been very long she left the county jail. Paris is wise to use her blog as a way to communicate with fans. If she blogs the right things she might also be able improve some people's negative opinion of her. It couldn't hurt.
Gossip Blogs Claim Lindsay Lohan's BlackBerry, Gmail and MySpace Hacked
Several celebrity gossip blogs here, here, here, here, here and here are reporting that Lindsay Lohan's private MySpace account has been hacked and emails and photos from her gmail and BlackBerry accounts were posted there. The Superficial says the emails include exchanges between Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, Shanna Moakler, Samantha Ronson, and Stavros Niarchos. Superficial's post also contains copies of some of these email exchanges. The emails include frequent use of foul language and very lousy spelling. Some of the blogs are saying that a website will be launched later containing all the information the people stole from Linday's gmail and BlackBerry account. It is hard to imagine all three services being hacked at once unless maybe one account was breached and Lindsay Lohan was using the same password for all three. Linday's MySpace profile appears to have been closed. The only message is there now is "Invalid Friend ID. This user has either cancelled their membership, or their acccount has been deleted."
Pagesix reports (hat tip Writer's Blog) that Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue who is now famous for being loosely portrayed in the The Devil Wears Prada, has expressed her displeasure of the word "blog."
Anna Wintour is as picky with words as she is with her wardrobe. According to one Vogue-er, "They are expanding the Vogue Web site and getting more involved with the Internet. But Anna hates the word 'blog' so much, she refuses to call anything on her site a blog and has charged her staff with coming up with a new word that isn't as garish-sounding. She wants it ASAP - in time for launch." However, a source close to Wintour said, "Anna just doesn't want people to refer to stories as blogs, because they're not. It's an improper use of the word." A rep said, "Anna has nothing against blogs."
So don't ever expect to find anything called a blog on Vogue's website. It will be interesting to see what Vogue's staff comes up with to replace the word blog. Eat the Press suggests "blogue" for the new word. The Writer's Blog is asking its readers to help Anna's staff out by coming up with a fashionable alternative to the "garish" word blog.
Two Celebrity Gossip Blogs Among Females Aged 17-25 Favorite Sites
Emarketer is reporting on a recent Youth Trends study of 17-to-25-year-olds. For both males and females Facebook was the number one website. What's most interesting about the study is that two blogs were among the top ten most popular website for females aged 17 to 25. The two blogs (both celebrity gossip blogs) are Pink Is the New Blog and What Would Tyler Durden Do. In case you don't know Tyler Durden is a character from the Fight Club movie.
The survey is conducted quarterly, and the previous quarter marked the first time that Facebook was tops among both women and men.
Two blogs were in the female top 10 list for the first time: Pink Is the New Blog and What Would Tyler Durden Do? (WWTDD). Both blogs have an entertainment/gossip focus, which Mr. Weil says "is consistent with Gen Y females' current adoration with content surrounding celebrities and their 'uh oh' moments."
MySpace was second on the top 10 list for females, but it remained sixth for males, with the percentage of 17-to-25-year-old males listing it as their favorite moving up slightly from 13% in the previous quarterly listing to 14%.
Blogs are getting very popular if they are now among the top websites young people visit. It is surprising that the Perez Hilton blog was not one of the the top sites as it is often referred to as the most popular celebrity blog.
Actress Tori Spelling is blogging on her MySpace site. Tori explains in this post how you can visit her in Temecula new B&B and she will "make your bed and serve you muffins."
Dean and I are so excited that our official myspace page is set up. We have so many things to share with you. First of all, our baby boy is due at the end of March! I can't believe I have a whole month left considering I feel like I'm ready to pop. At this point in the game i'm getting very exhausted and a little uncomfortable. Not to mention my little man is an active one.I think he spends most of his day either kung fu fighting in my belly or having a mean game of of twister with his umbilical cord. But, we cannot wait to meet him! And, we have another baby being born in March...Our new B&B (bed and Breakfast). We took it over a little while ago and renovations are in full swing. It was an older colonial B&B in Temecula that we are turning modern and chic for our generation...and its of course run by us. Yes, you read correctly... Tori Spelling will actually make your bed and serve you muffins if you stay there.
Tori Spelling and her husband Dean McDermott also have a reality show called Tori and Dean: Inn Love that will start on Oxygen March 20th at 1030pm. They also have the baby on the way.
Singers Mia Rose, Ashley Tisdale, Terra Naomi Build YouTube Audience
Singer Mia Rose has generated quite a bit of attention to her YouTube channel
and videos. Rose covers popular songs in her videos including "Unwritten",
"Break Away",
"Heaven"
and "L.O.V.E".
She talks in a
recent vlog about traveling to meetings for possible music deals. A Rolling Stoneblog post
discusses a backlash against Mia Rose from some Youtubers. There may be
some jealousy here.
During this past week Mia Rose gained over 35,000 YouTube subscribers.
That's very impressive considering that the leading YouTube channel -- which
belongs to the well-known Lonelgirl15 -- has 75,000 subscribers. Mia Rose's impressive week vaulted her into the fifth spot on the list of YouTubers with the most subscribers. Another Youtuber singer with potential going by the username esmeedenters
has also accumulated a significant number of subscribers (over 16,000) by covering popular songs in YouTube videos from singers like Beyonce
and Otis Redding.
Esmeendenters is Esmee from the Netherlands -- she also has a
MySpace page.
Young artists that already have contracts with major music labels are also
utilizing YouTube. Leading the way are Ashley Tisdale and Terra Naomi.
Ashley Tisdale, an actress/singer who is probably familiar to Disney Channel viewers, has also been building an audience on YouTube. A video of hers that is popular on YouTube called "Kiss the Girl" is a remake of Disney song. Tisdale already has a record contract -- her first album Headstrong will be released early next month. Ashley Tisdale has been vlogging concert clips and personal messages. Her channel has about 9,000 subscribers. Terra Naomi, who has signed with Island Records, has over 13,000 subscribers to her channel on YouTube.com. Her first video Say It's Possible includes film contributions from people around the world. Ashley Tisdale and Terra Naomi are looking mighty smart for jumping on YouTube early and providing frequent vlogs and updates for fans. With the massive amount of traffic YouTube has some musicians are clearly missing out on an obvious opportunity.
Other music-related Youtube channels with a significant number of
subscribers include Paris Hilton's Channel, Ryan Leslie TV, GiR2007 and
P. Diddy's Bad Boy Records. Paris Hilton has just over 10,000 subscribers to her channel
but most of that came when her channel was launched as part of a YouTube
promotion last August for her new album. She hasn't achieved much subscriber growth since then. Bad Boy Records has 11,000+ subscribers to its channel. Singer and music producer Ryan Leslie has over 16,000 subscribers to his popular channel. GiR2007, the group behind the funny pancakes
song and music video, has over 11,000 subscribers to its channel. MysteryGuitarMan's channel, which veers off into humor, also has 11,000 subscribers.
MySpace has a huge music section and is the home for numerous bands but artists. A MySpace profile is a must for wannabe music stars but new artists also should not overlook the possibilities a YouTube channel offers. This is still the early days of YouTube and video sharing. The combination of good music and good videos could quickly propel a new band to one of the top spots on YouTube's most
subscribed channels page. But at time marches on that opportunity will slip and it will become much more difficult to acquire enough subscribers to vault to the top of YouTube.
Posh (Victoria Beckham) has been blogging from the Beckham Brand Limited website at www.dvbstyle.com (thx A Socialite's Life). In addition to providing news Posh also has a photo blog and a video blog (click on vbtx for the videos). On January 15th she blogged about the much-discussednews that she will be moving to L.A with her husband David Beckham. David Beckham recently signed a contract to play soccer for L.A. Galaxy.
No doubt you will have heard the news by now that David and I are going to be moving to America. This is a really exciting move for us and the children, and one which we have thought about carefully. I know David is excited about promoting football in the USA and playing for L.A. Galaxy.
I'm really looking forward to making new friends and enjoying the sunshine in California. But I will be back often and will keep everybody here up to date with what's happening. Keep your eyes peeled for more news, which will be posted here on the DVB site.
Thanks
Victoria x
Good for Posh for providing three forms of media from her site: blogging, photos and videos. We added Victoria Beckham's blog to our list of celebrity blogs.
PerezHilton.com Loses One Advertiser But Gains Several More
Racy content and lawsuits (see here and here) so far aren't holding back advertisers from placing ads on the PerezHilton.com gossip blog. One ad was pulled recently from PerezHilton.com because of objections to some revealing celebrity photographs on the website according to a MediaPost article but there have been more than enough ads to take its place. The MediaPost says PerezHilton.com, which uses the Blogads ad network, has run ads for six different tv series in just the past week or so.
The ad formats have varied from featured spots in the right-hand skyscraper unit to full site takeovers. Series promoted include "Grey's Anatomy" and "Gay, Straight or Taken" on Lifetime, "Wildfire" on ABC Family, "Dirt" on FX, "Beauty and the Geek" on The CW Network, and "Surreal Life: Fame Games" on VH1. Spots on the site--arranged by blog ad network Blogads--range from $800 per week to $9,000 per week for placements in the skyscraper to significantly more for full site takeovers. Blogads declined to disclose the exact figure.
Blogads founder Henry Copeland said it is the site's young demographic and huge impressions that advertisers are after.
Henry Copeland, founder of Blogads, said that brands are willing to advertise with Perez to tap into the blog's enormous readership. Blogads reports 15.6 million ad impressions weekly on the premium ad spot on PerezHilton.com, making it the most highly trafficked space in the entire Blogads network. "The most important factor: everyone at agencies and the clients is reading Perez," he said. "They know their target audience is reading it. And they know they have to be there if they want to hit America's 2 million trend-mavenest women in their twenties and thirties--the women who are the queen bees in their offices for entertainment news."
Perez Hilton will need to sustain its massive traffic in order to continue to interest advertisers. He will have to be able to fend off lawsuits from the photography agencies so he can continue running celebrity photographs. PerezHilton.com is also not without competition from the thousands of other celebrity blogs. A Broadcasting & Cablearticle says other celebrity sites used recently in a FX ad campaign included Gawker and PopSugar in addition to PerezHilton.com.
Lycos has announced that Perez Hilton's blog was the most-searched blog on Lycos in 2006. Perez Hilton is also being pursued by angry photo agencies who accuse him of constantly stealing their photos. Perez had 91% more searches the second-most searched for blog, the Huffington Post. Other top searched blogs included TMZ, Pink is the New Blog and PostSecret.
And from the blogosphere, Perez Hilton is the most-searched blog site of 2006, generating 91 percent more search interest than the second most popular blog site with web searchers, Huffington Post. While Huffington Post provides news and opinions, three of the top five most-searched blog sites this year cater to celebrity gossip news, including Perez Hilton, a.k.a. Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., TMZ, a.k.a. "Thirty Mile Zone" around Hollywood, and Pink is the New Blog. The fifth most popular blog site in 2006 is PostSecret, an ongoing community art project where people anonymously email their secrets on postcards.
You can see the entire Lycos 50 here. The Lycos 50 also has a blog but it could use some new posts -- the last post was in October.
TMZ.com reports that Perez Hilton (real name Mario Lavandeira) is being sued for $7.5 million by a photo agency.
The tabloid agency is seeking over $7.5 million dollars in damages from Perez for what they say is a loss of profits and injury to their reputation. The photo agency believes their pics have played a large part in the success and profitability of perezhilton.com, which reportedly charges between $9,000 and $16,000 a week for ad space. It costs plenty to appear next to Britney's crotch!
Perez tells TMZ, "I have yet to be personally served with this lawsuit. My lawyers and I will address the situation when we have the opportunity to review the materials."
It turns out the lawsuit that is about to be filed is from multiple photo agencies who have joined together to sue Perez. You can read more about the lawsuit here on Splash's website. Splash is one of seven photo agencies suing Perez.
Perez Hilton is to be hit by a multi-million dollar federal lawsuit from the top seven paparazzi agencies in the US.
Splash News, INF, Ramey, Bauer Griffin, WENN, Most Wanted and Flynet have joined forces to stop Perezhilton.com from using copyrighted images.
"Perez claims he is making a fortune off exploiting pictures taken by photographers. He blatantly violates copyright and makes advertising revenue off other people's works," said Gary Morgan of Splash News.
"It is time he is held accountable for his actions. We have amassed a ton of evidence from all of these agencies detailing his infringements.
We have filed a letter to him giving him the chance to either pay up for all of his copyright violations or face the music. He only has a few days to decide."
A couple weeks ago Perez Hilton being was served with a cease-and-desist order and the video of the incident wound up on YouTube. The video was removed from YouTube but it can still be seen here. The photo agencies are definitely starting to crack down on unauthorized use of photographs and they are targeting Perez Hilton who they believe is a serial copyright violater.
Rachael Ray gets frequent mentions in the blogosphere -- she receives about 50 too 100 mentions a day according to a Technorati chart. However, not all of the posts about her are positive. That's not unusual for a celebrity to have harsh comments about them in blogs but what is unique about Ray's detractors is that they have organized into a very large group. The Boston Globereports that a group of LiveJournal bloggers united by their loathing of Rachael Ray have formed a community called the Rachael Ray Sucks Community. Membership to the community has swollen to over 1,000 since it first began about three years ago.
But what about shared dislikes? Can a community form around that? What is the opposite of a fan club? The answer is the Rachael Ray Sucks Community.
Gathering by way of the blogging and social-networking site LiveJournal, this group has more than 1,000 members, who are quite active in posting their latest thoughts and observations about the various shortcomings, flaws, and disagreeable traits of Rachael Ray, the television food personality.
"This community," the official explanation reads, "was created for people that hate the untalented twit known as Rachael Ray." The most important rule for those who wish to join: "You must be anti-Rachael!"
As with any community, the key to attracting members is not just a clear core idea but one that can be fulfilled in a variety of ways. Members of the Rachael Ray Sucks Community certainly do this, criticizing her cooking skills, her over-reliance on chicken stock, her kitchen hygiene, her smile, her voice, her physical mannerisms, her clothes, her penchant for saying "Yum-o," and so on.
It seems odd that people would spend their time in a club dedicated to despising a cooking celebrity but it is true. The Internet is full of niches -- even anti-individual celebrity niches or anti-fan clubs. The anti-Ray group probably doesn't like this much more postive blog about Rachael Ray called Everything Rachael Ray. They probably won't like any of the Yum-O links found there either.
Canada.com reports that Splash, a paprazzi agency, is the latest photography agency to take complaints that Perez Hilton is illegally copying photos one step farther.
In a letter drafted by L.A. law firm Makarem & Associates, Hilton was ordered to remove exclusive photos of Britney Spears holding her baby Jayden James, taken in Louisiana by Splash snappers Aaron St-Clair and Steve Dennett.
The legal move by Splash, one of the biggest paparazzi agencies in the world, comes just weeks after a photographer from FilmMagic confronted Hilton at a Hollywood event about pilfering his photos.
A defensive Hilton snapped at the photographer: “Nobody contacted me to take it down, so shut the f**k up!"
FilmMagic and sister agency WireImage are owned by MediaVast Inc.
Splash handed Perez a cease-and-desist letter at local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf cafe. You can even see the video of Perez receiving the cease-and-desist letter here on YouTube. The article says X-17 and Toronto-based LDP Images have also warned Perez Hilton about posting copyrighted photos on his blog. A post on Jossip said VH1 has passed on a Hilton show. Jossip writes, "we hear the celeb blogger's reality show recently got the shaken head from VH1. And, from what we understand, VH1 isn't the first network to say no to the production."
An apparently fake Twitter account claiming to be Kanye West came to the attention of Kanye West during Stephen Colbert's 
Fashionista 
Following the launch of her 
Here's another entry in the celebrity blogging department. There is a 
VH1 has launched a new celebrity gossip blog called 
People 
Paris Hilton is using her MySpace blog to counter stories about her she says are not true. Paris writes that, "These stories have gotten out of control and I want to clear some things up." In her 
Twitter is not just for bloggers and tech people anymore. Over the past few months there has been a steady migration from Facebook and MySpace. Now celebrities like John Tesh are even jumping onboard. You can find John Tesh's Twitter 
MediaWeek 
Vibe 
Can you think of anything crazier than launching a new website in 2008 without a blog? Leave it to Tom Cruise's web team to do just that. Last week the people that work for Tom Cruise (scientologists and hollywood pr experts) were 
Gawker 
By now everyone has heard that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was 
Now that Elisabeth Hasselbeck's new baby Taylor Thomas Hasselbeck is 
PaidContent 
Rapper, producer and songwriter Kanye West has started a 
Chris Crocker quickly became one of the most well-known YouTubers when his 
Music bloggers also regularly cover events like the Video Music Awards. MTV was smart enough to put the entire show on its website in segments which
makes it easy to link to a particular part of the show. They did claim to offer embedding but when the embed code was posted into a blog and played the video wouldn't run. Instead viewers only see a message that says the video was only available on the MTV website. When are the big media companies going to realize that if they make short video clips available properly for embedding (even with a non-annoying ad) they are going to get much more exposure than they would by only allowing the video to be seen on their website? Here's what happens if you try to embed the video clip from MTV.com that contains Britney's sad peformance. As of this writing, it only shows a message that the Britney video can only be found on MTV.com. The player then starts running other performance from the show which are halted by yet another message sending viewers to MTV.com.
Paris Hilton has 
Actress Tori Spelling is blogging on her 
Singer 
Posh (Victoria Beckham) has been blogging from the Beckham Brand Limited website at 
Racy content and lawsuits (see 
Lycos has 
Rachael Ray gets frequent mentions in the blogosphere -- she receives about 50 too 100 mentions a day according to a 
The upcoming wedding between Tom Cruise and Katie Holme