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Can the Web Really Sustain All the Celebrity-Stalking Sites Out There?

by Terrence O'Brien on September 23, 2008 at 11:21 AM

Can Celebrity Stalking Sites Survive?
The Internet seems to be overrun with three types of sites: porn, technology, and celebrity gossip pages. The question on many minds -- according to an article in Forbes -- is how long can the Internet sustain an ecosystem where there are enough celebrity gossip pages for every star to have at least three or four dedicated exclusively to them.

According to Internet tracker Hitwise, the number of celeb-stalking Web sites has doubled in the last three years to at least 1,202, though we suspect that the number is actually much higher. Sites such as Yahoo! omg!, People.com, PerezHilton, and TMZ are clearly at the top of the heap, but whether the smaller sites can turn a profit or keep operating in the shadow of the big dogs of gossips sites remains to be seen.

Many gossip sites are one man (or woman) operations set up as a hobby. According to the article, these smaller sites will likely never draw the attention of a significant quantity of people, but they'll keep operating because there is little to lose. The smaller commercial operations and startups run by little known blogging networks (or fading stars) are likely to collapse when the stalkerazzi bubble bursts. [From: Forbes]

Tags: gossip, media, paparazzi, perez hilton, PerezHilton, stalker, tmz

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