Web Celebrities Up and Down in Forbes Top 25 List for 2007
“Things change fast on the internet ” starts the Forbes article, and we can take it as a punctuation mark talking about web-related things. Anna Vander Broek deals with the Drop-offs on the Top Web Celebrity list, and, I’m afraid she will not wash off a bad wording that may insult Rocketboom fans.
Down - (mostly video stars)
Jessica Lee Rose (Lonelygirl15): “faded from the online spotlight, though she continues to pursue her acting career: … gigs on the ABC Family TV show Greek and in the film I Know Who Killed Me starring Lindsay Lohan.”
Amanda Congdon: “Congdon was No. 8 on our list last year, thanks to her role as host and co-producer of Rocketboom, an irreverent daily video blog that ran from October 2004 to June 2006. [clearly, Anna Vander Broek will want to rephrase what she wrote, as Rocketboom is more than alive with Joanne Colan!!!] … launched her own online TV show, …and got a gig doing a weekly videocast on ABCNews.com…. will not continue their relationship.”
Leo Laporte “earned 17th place on our list last year as a blogger, pundit and podcaster. He produces the much-downloaded TWiT.tv network show This Week in Tech, hosts a television show, The Lab With Leo Laporte”
ZeFrank: “ZeFrank’s daily video blog, launched in 2006, attracted a large viewership, but after it ended in March 2007, his audience shrunk.”
OK, so here are the winners (video makers in bold): the top 25 for 2007
1. [PerezHilton.com] (originally Mario Lavandeira) “Hitwise tracks 17 sites that fall into the category of celebrity news, says Dougherty, and in that category, Perez has 46% of the market share. His biggest competitor, Egotastic, has only 8%.”
“Perez is becoming a TV star, with gigs including guest-hosting The View, appearing as a contestant on MTV’s Celebrity Rap Superstar and hosting his own series of specials, What Perez Sez, which airs on VH1.”
2. Michael Arrington, “corporate attorney, entrepreneur and editor of the influential TechCrunch blog.” Nice job.
3. Mark Frauenfelder. “Boing Boing is one of the most read and linked-to blogs in the world–so big that three of the five editors appear on this edition of the Web Celeb 25. … the editor-in-chief of do-it-yourself magazine MAKE, a geek favorite. .. Boing Boing’s expansion into podcasts and videocasts further increases his visibility.” Congrats Makezine & BB!
4. Seth Godin: “a demigod on the Web, a best-selling author, highly sought-after lecturer, successful entrepreneur, respected pundit and high-profile blogger.”
5. Cory Doctorow “activist for digital rights, and serves as a fellow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He’s one of the editors of Boing Boing”
6. Matt Drudge, editor of the Drudge Report
7. Gina Trapani: “When geeks want to get their lives together, they turn to Gina Trapani.” Congrats, Gina.
8. Mark Zuckerberg: “while recent advertising initiatives like the “Beacon” scheme have tarnished his and the company’s image, he remains the most prominent face of the social networking boom”
9. Harry Knowles: “trolled the Web searching for gossip and rumors about upcoming films and eventually launched his own Web site, Aint It Cool News.”
10. Robert Scoble: “2006, he left Microsoft; today, his blog, Scobleizer, and his video blog, ScobleShow, are hugely popular.”
11. Frank Warren: “Got a secret? Write it on a homemade postcard and send it to PostSecret, Frank Warren’s ongoing community art project.”
12. Om Malik: “Malik frequently appears in the media and on television as a technology expert” Congrats, GigaOm.
13. Will Leitch “the founding editor of Deadspin, the world’s biggest independent sports blog.”
14. Jeff Jarvis: “a crusader for citizen journalism, a prominent liberal commentator, and, thanks to his frequent appearances on TV and radio, one of the most cited and quoted names on the Net.”
15. Kevin Rose: “his weekly podcast Diggnation, co-hosted with Alex Albrecht, is a must-catch for the young tech crowd.”
16. Kathy Sierra: “an expert on computer programming, co-creator of the Head First series of programming instruction books, and editor of the blog Creating Passionate Users.” I love the Headfirst series!!
17. Fake Steve Jobs: “In August 2006, Forbes editor Dan Lyons started a secret, pseudonymous blog, posing as the alter ego of Apple CEO Steve Jobs.”
18. Kos: “Markos Moulitsas’ political weblog, Daily Kos, is one of the most prominent commentary sites on the Web, a font of progressive politics and liberal opinion.”
19. Xeni Jardin: “ubiquitous as a tech culture journalist, co-editing technology blog BoingBoing.”
20. Ryan Block “became editor in chief of the massively popular tech blog Engadget in 2007, after working for the site as a reporter since mid-2004 … caused Apple’s stock to sink, wiping $4 billion off the company’s market capitalization”
21-25. please discover it for yourself.
As you may have noticed, several independent news bloggers are on the list creating long-term relationships with their audience. Some of them have been web celebs for years, so the 2007 list is not so up-to-date for regular blog readers. I expected a more novelty list, to be honest. People who really got into the mainstream web awareness flow in 2007, like Obama girl. But maybe that’s me.
I like the way Forbes defined the term ‘web celebrity’: “To generate the ranking, we first defined “Web Celeb” as a person famous primarily for creating or appearing in Internet-based content, and for being highly recognizable to a Web-based audience. That definition excludes people who were significantly famous before they hit the Web–like author Arianna Huffington.” Bumm. (has Seth Godin become famous on the web?) So if you just continue to be famous you are not a web celebrity any more, sorry. Hm. While it makes the list easier to handle, I do not find it a satisfactory solution. It is a hard job, and a different one to become a web celeb. There should be a category for anyway celebs, and really fresh celebs, etc. I guess.
Forbes measured success through web analytics, which sounds great: “Each candidate was ranked in five areas:
- Web references as calculated by Google (more details about this technique?)
- traffic ranking of their home page as calculated by Alexa (whoops)
- Technorati rank of their primary Web site or blog (so-so)
- TV/radio mentions and press clips compiled from Factiva.
- We gave candidates bonus points if they regularly published their own videoblog or podcast. [Did you hear that? Vlogs are coming up in publicity making and breaking]
“All six categories were then totaled to produce a final score. ” [how did we get the six categories, eventually?]
I have added some Google Trends screenshots: BoingBoing shows steady results, Robert Scoble was more Google trendy in 2006 than in 2007, LifeHacker is beautifully growing etc.