TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Moguls of New Media

Moguls of New Media

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:58:10 -0400

The MySpace member with a million 'friends.' The receptionist with a
production deal. Some of the Web's amateur entertainers are becoming
powerful players.

By JOHN JURGENSEN

On the popular Web site MySpace.com, members set up profiles with
information about their interests and then network across the site,
recruiting other members to link to their pages. Often, the teens and
20-somethings who dominate the site have dozens or hundreds of these
registered "friends."

Then there's Christine Dolce, whose MySpace page boasts nearly one
million friends -- making her arguably one of the most connected
people on the Internet. A 24-year-old cosmetologist who until a few
months ago worked at a makeup counter in a mall, she now has a
manager and a start-up jeans company and has won promotional deals
for two mainstream consumer brands.

As videos, blogs and Web pages created by amateurs remake the
entertainment landscape, unknown directors, writers and producers are
being catapulted into positions of enormous influence. Each week,
about a half-million people download a comedic video podcast featuring
a former paralegal. A video by a 30-year-old comedian from Cleveland
has now been watched by almost 30 million people, roughly the audience
for an average "American Idol" episode. The most popular contributor
to the photo site Flickr.com just got a contract to shoot a Toyota ad
campaign.

While online stardom can sometimes be fleeting, and some measures of
audience size are subject to debate, a look at the rising stars in
this world shows how the path to entertainment success is being
redefined. Traditional media companies and marketers are already in
pursuit of some of these new faces.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115412710465720901-U6_GRP11Z3o9APvWCRgJ3S9RY5Q_20060829.html

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