Archive for the 'Rising Stars' Category

by Mike Fennelly

So, we here at PopDigerati have written a bunch about virtual celebrities, or people and things that are only famous because of the internet. What happens, though, when the real world celebrities cross over into the virtual world and start interacting with the fans?

Meet Billy West. You may know him a little bit better as Ren, or Stimpy, or Fry, Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan, or Professor Farnsworth from Futurama. Or maybe as the red M&M, or Bugs Bunny or Porky Pig. You get the picture. You may not know him as one of the most accessible celebrities out there today, via his messageboard at http://www.billywest.com.

Now the question for the readership (hello everyone from mybloglog.com, thanks for checking us out!) is (as you may have guessed, since it’s the title of this post) Who is your favorite “real” celebrity that’s out there online interacting with their fans? As you can see, we’re using the term “celebrity” a little loosely. They don’t have to be Paris Hilton, but they should be Someone We Would Have Heard Of. They should also be actually out there, via messageboard, chatroom or blog, actually interacting with their fans. Let us know, so we can steal your ideas run features on them here on PopDigerati!

This post has been truncated here because Someone Who Shall Remain Nameless But Might Possibly Be Mike’s Girlfriend told him his last post was “too long”. Pshaw.

by Brion Lau

Can a $10 investment really amass $1 million?  Ask Anshe Chung (aka Ailin Graef), real estate tycoon of the virtual world, Second Life.  According to the official press release,  Chung’s virtual real estate empire totaling approximately 36 square kilometers is now roughly valued at $1 million.

The Valleywag blog seems to think this is BS.  Normally I’d agree except other articles clearly show a real business model for making real money in the virtual world.  Case in point, Businessweek wrote an article, “My Virtual Life”, highlighting a few examples of virtual riches including Chung’s example.  If you still think this is just hype, then I recommend reading Kim Roach’s article, “Second Life Marketing”, as further evidence that PopDigerati may be writing about even more virtual celebrities in the future.

by Brion Lau

What about a sports fan? Car buff? Fashion? Why am I asking?

Tonight I attended an event featuring entrepreneurs who have made the transition from employees to starting their own business. One of the panel speakers was Dave Lu, founder of FanPop.

The FanPop concept is simple: as a fan you can create a ’spot’ which collects together links to news stories, video clips, blogs, photos, forums and other online resources. All these links are submitted by Fanpop users, who can vote on each other’s links to highlight the best.

Lu had already been experimenting with blogs, affiliate marketing, and contextual advertising (Google adsense). In fact, he was running a blog called EOSrebels prior to launching FanPop. He soon realized there was an opportunity to create a platform where fans of all niches could come together to swap links and pool information.

According to TechDigest’s article on FanPop, Lu states, “Why not multiply that site by a thousand and give people an easy way to share their links and videoclips for all kinds of niche subjects?” he says. “You can search on Google or Yahoo, but there’s no context around what the results are, to tell you if they’re good. Social bookmarking sites do that kind of thing, but they’re disorganised and tag-based, and don’t build a community around those tags.”

For now, the site is still in beta, focused on growing its fans, and driving revenue through contextual advertisements (Google Adsense). Also, I can’t help but mention Dave Lu sounds just like David Liu from my previous article on Faqqly.com!

[Note to Mike: go create your fanpop page on the Red Sox. Lu says there's not enough sports enthusiasts yet.]

by Brion Lau

This past week, I literally stumbled upon Faqqly.com (FACK-LEE or FACK-UH-LEE)–a new social networking/community site. The premise behind this site is to create an “authentic community” where the quality time spent on this site will also lead to time spent with FAQQLY friends off-line.

FAQQLY was founded by David Liu, still a senior at UCLA! While the site is still in beta, Dave is off to a good start as an entrepreneur. Since launching the site earlier this year, FAQQLY has over 5,000 registered users participating including Cali Lewis from GeekBrief TV, Keiko Agena of Gilmore Girls, and Amy McKay, Canadian author of “A Birth House”.

Since FAQQLY is still in its infancy, it will need a critical mass of users joining. In addition, it will need to differentiate itself from other services available such as Yahoo! Answers, Google Anwers, Wondir, and Microsoft’s QnA to name a few. That said, we at PopDigerati are not about to write Dave off. In fact, we’re looking at seeing how we might be able to leverage his service to enable you to interact directly with the various digerati we’re writing about. Stay tuned on this one.

Meanwhile, Dave maintains his own FAQ page, finding time to personally answer his FAQs despite his busy schedule. We encourage you to check out his page and ask him your burning question directly!

by Brion Lau

Have you heard of Cali Lewis? No? She’s the popular host of GeekBrief TV – Video Segments and Podcasts on “Shiny, Happy Tech News”.

Cali’s real name is Luria Petrucci. Why the dual identity? Well, according to her Q&A section on Faqqly.com:

Cali Lewis was a character name in a book Neal (her husband) and I were writing. When we came up with the name Geek Brief, we had a flood of ancillary ideas. Geek Brief was a daily briefing for members of the Geek Intelligence Agency (G.I.A.). I would be its National Director, and of course, every spy has an alias! I love my real name, and that’s why I don’t hide it. But it’s difficult for people to pronounce, and difficult for people to spell, so it just made sense to use the name Cali Lewis as a screen name.

As a geeky girl who likes to read fantasy books, it’s easy for me to step into the role of Cali Lewis, your fearless leader on camera, and then be the shy, bookish, Luria Petrucci who giggles all the time in my real life. I hope people who watch this show have as much fun with the fantasy as I do.

How did she come up with the idea for GeekBrief TV?

In November 2005, Neal and I were addicted to listening to podcasts, and we were even doing an audio podcast. We saw Tiki Bar, and decided we would come up with an idea for a video podcast. We were both really into gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo, so the idea was to create a news show about the latest and greatest gadgets. The first domain we registered was gogoshow.net, and I would be the Go Go Gadget Girl, like Inspector Gadget. Then on November 30th, we were both on GoDaddy.com searching for domain names. One of us typed in GeekBrief. It was available and we loved the name, so we registered GeekBrief.just about everything. Throughout December, we bought some equipment, software, and solidified the idea with the goal of releasing the first episode by Christmas, just in time for all those people who got new video iPods. We released Brief #1 on December 23rd, 2005.

When she’s not hosting GeekBrief, Cali enjoys long walks on the beach and relaxing games of Sudoku. If you have a question you’d like to ask Cali or would like to read other the rest of her Q&As, click Cali’s Faqqly.com banner below.

by Brion Lau

This article was too entertaining to pass up.  Even the glitterati are now getting into the Pop Digerati action.  I’m not going to spoil this entertaining read for you.  All I can say is Denise Richard, laptop, paparazzi, and two elderly women.

Click here to get the full scoop.

by Mike Fennelly

How many times have you been forced to sit through yet another pointless two hour conference call with Ed from Accounting and Gustav from Marketing? How many times, during your Ed and Gustav quality time have you thought “You know what would really make this meeting more productive? A clown in bondage gear!” If you’re like me, every single frickin’ time.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we present Ouchy the Clown.

Not only available to whip your meetings into shape, so to speak, he’ll also DJ your corporate functions, or just whale the living crap out of you for money!

(note to readers : please paypal mike@rubylashes.com large amounts of money so I can hire Ouchy to DJ my unsuspecting employer’s holiday party. I Am Not Kidding.)

Just look at that hulking mountain of…uh…er…semi-nude clown. Think about aformentioned hulking mountain of semi-nude clown standing in your conference room pointing out lurid details of the first quarter’s naughty, naughty losses.

Someone’s been a bad accountant, haven’t they? Haven’t they? And we know what Ouchy does do naughty accountants? Don’t we?

Well, actually, I guess we don’t. Nor do we really want to. Maybe.
Remember, folks – http://www.ouchytheclown.com – where the elite meet to get beat!

by Brion Lau

A star is born and her name is Christina Dolce (aka Forbidden). Does that ring a bell? If not, how about the “Queen of MySpace”?

The 24-year old Dolce quickly rose to fame shortly after joining MySpace back in 2003. Once she posted her profile and images online, she was beseiged with thousands of requests from “friends”. In fact, she amassed more than 850,000 friends and became one of the most popular profiles on MySpace.

From there things really took off. Dolce’s MySpace fame has translated into her own line of clothing (Destroyed Denim), pictorals in magazines (FHM, Stuff, Rolling Stone, Playboy), and a gig as a spokesmodel for Axe deodorant.

Stay tuned fans because it’s not long before Dolce breaks into the film and television industry.  Check out the latest on Dolce’s website, Forbiddenxo.com.

by Brion Lau

Can Flickr really make you famous? Ask Rebekka Gudleifsdottir.

Last year she was a student at the Iceland Academy of Arts just learning how to use a camera. Now she’s one of the most popular photographers on Flickr, an online community where more than 4 million users post and browse photos. Rebekka’s Flickr fame has now translated into an assignment with Toyota where she will shoot and star in a soon to be released advertisement!

Click here to check out Rebekka’s portfolio on Flick.

by Brion Lau

Jonathan is the artist behind the Yahoo! Time Capsule. For 30 days, from October 10 until November 8, 2006, Yahoo! users worldwide can contribute photos, writings, videos, audio – even drawings – to this electronic anthropology project. This digital data will be gathered and preserved for historical purposes.

Jonathan Harris Profile
Jonathan is an artist working primarily on the Internet. His work involves the exploration of humans through the artifacts they leave behind on the Web. He was awarded a 2004 Fabrica Fellowship, and is the creator of such projects as We Feel Fine, 10×10, WordCount, Phylotaxis, and justcurio.us. In 2005 he created the Yahoo! Netrospective, a look back on the first ten years of the Internet. He studied Computer Science at Princeton University, where his thesis was a system that automatically gathers and clusters similar news articles from a large number of online sources. The winner of two 2005 Webby Awards, his work has also been recognized by AIGA, Ars Electronica, ID Magazine, and the State of Vermont, and has been featured by CNN, Reuters, BBC, The Guardian, USA Today, NPR and Wired. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and works as Design Director of Daylife, a global news service. His website is www.number27.org.

Check out his work on Yahoo! Visit the Time Capsule today.