Andrew LaVallee

The Rise of the 'Citizen Paparazzi'

2008-02-26T05:08:39Z

Hunger for Celebrity Gossip Helps Create a Market for Amateurs, But Not Everyone Is Happy

Erin Horgan is more than a casual John Mayer fan. When she learned about a Caribbean cruise being offered earlier this month with the singer as the featured entertainment, the 22-year-old worker at a Hyannis, Mass., scrapbooking store didn't hesitate to drop $1,000 for a ticket.

As it turned out, she got even more contact with her favorite singer than she expected: Mr. Mayer, hamming it up for fellow passengers, donned a neon green thong-style swimsuit as Ms. Horgan and others furiously snapped photographs. In a blog post after returning home, Ms. Horgan joked that she was going to send the pictures to celebrity magazine Us Weekly.

She didn't have to. Within days, Ms. Horgan heard not only from Us Weekly, but also from MTV, VH1, Rolling Stone, Blender and Newsweek. She ended up selling photos to Newsweek and VH1 - she says she was offered "a couple hundred" for each photo, but declines to be more specific.

"The thought of getting shots that anyone was interested in was never on my mind," she said.

Ms. Horgan is part of the changing face of the paparazzi trade, an Internet-fueled industry that feeds on the public's seemingly insatiable interest in entertainment news. Photo agencies are increasingly relying on submissions from regular folk who either happen to bump into celebrities while carrying digital cameras, or who have injected themselves into the cat-and-mouse game of celebrity snapshots, despite any formal training.

This has led to an explosion in the number of photographs available to magazines and Web sites like TMZ or Perez Hilton. And it has created friction with the old-guard paparazzi, who often find themselves navigating throngs of amateurs at red-carpet events. The pros complain that the newcomers are partly to blame for depressed prices, since they sometimes agree to sell shots for $25 or $50 that could have commanded several hundred dollars before. What's more, they gripe about rude and particularly aggressive behavior from some of the amateurs - no small allegation in an industry long known for its anything-goes tactics.

"It's the citizen paparazzi," said Mario Lavandeira, who is better known by his online persona Perez Hilton. His popular gossip blog frequently posts celebrity pictures submitted by readers.

Blog entries from CES (Jan. 6-10)

2008-01-15T06:01:17Z

Leaving Las Vegas
What is it with bathroom technology, Jerry?

Belly Dancing with 8×8's Tango
It's late in the day on Day 3, and CES attendees practically need a Tasering to notice an exhibitor at this point. Enter belly dancers.

The Other, Sexier Tech Expo
Attracting plenty of curiosity among CES-goers (and disappointment at the strict admission policies) is AVN's Adult Entertainment Expo, which started today just down the corridor from one of the main CES exhibit halls.

Feeling the Bullets
You're playing Call of Duty 2, and because you're a n00b, you get shot in the back. With a new vest by Redmond, Wash.-based TN Games, you'll feel more than just humiliation.

Roker, Bartiromo and Access Hollywood's Nosejob
NBC is also relaunching the Web site for its nonstop coverage of Britney Spears, also known as Access Hollywood.

1.5 is On the Strip
Maybe Hitachi should reconsider one of its ad strategies.

Cute Overload for Geeks
Cute Overload, if you're reading, you may want to consider an "electronics" category for your blog. Practically every exhibitor in this area sells something with a smiley face on it.

The Tube on Your BlackBerry
As if we all don't spend enough time staring into them.

More True Black Than Meets the Eye
Example No. 328 of a company overshadowed by its booth gimmick -- in this case, literally overshadowed.

Bring in Da Noise
Try getting heard when you're based near the audio and gaming booths, where volume is one way to get an edge on your fellow exhibitors.

"Chocolate Rain" at Intel
YouTube sensation Tay Zonday is working the Intel booth, but someone might want to let the other staffers know.

How Big TVs Improve Family Life, and Other Sales Pitches
Pushing benefits over features is an age-old marketing tactic, and it gets a serious workout at CES.

Dancing for (and With) the Camera
Its artistic director describes the group's style as surrealistic visual theater -- "it's not Cirque du Soleil," he adds -- though a Canon spokeswoman who earlier described the act eventually confessed, "I don't know what they're doing.

Tailgating at Caesar's Palace
At the SimulScribe table, to get your attention they've even dropped the f- bomb -- on their t-shirts. Let's just say the service is strongly critical of, and aims to replace, voicemail.

Blogger "Lounge." Press "Room."
All those of us in the "press" know is that we got a flaming red badge holder (For "Stop and talk to me!" or maybe just "Stop") and bloggers got, as Gizmodo calls it, the "white badge of shame."

Ready, Set...
The Consumer Electronics Show officially starts tomorrow, but it's always fun to get a sneak peek as the 2,700 exhibitors unpack their giant monitors, rehearse their booth banter and swear at the forklifts.

Ones and Zeros

2007-12-28T23:43:54Z

Google Inc. crossed $700, IAC/InterActiveCorp split itself into five pieces, and Apple sold more than one million iPhones. Here's a look at some of the numbers behind the year's tech happenings.

Even Boring Blogs Can Be Things of Beauty

2007-12-20T04:06:25Z

The Web is full of content that only its creator could love. Witness the office-party photos, blogs about people's pets and bad lip-synched videos that turn up in a few minutes of Google-fueled procrastination.

To Guthrie Lonergan, however, Web junk is the basis of his most popular online art. "I'm sort of interested in that boringness," he says.

"Internet Group Shot" is one example. The collage, cobbled from dozens of group portraits, shows how people adopt the same huddle when they're saying "cheese." For "MySpace Intro Playlist," Mr. Lonergan looked for the self-made videos that young people post to their personal pages, then strung them together to show how teenagers tend to act similarly and say the same things when they're introducing themselves.

"There are defaults in our culture," Mr. Lonergan adds. "MySpace doesn't set up something for you to create an introduction video, but kind of like a telephone answering machine, you assume a certain kind of voice and say certain things."

The 23-year-old, who lives in L.A., is one of many artists mining Internet culture for creative inspiration. They make videos out of email spam and multimedia projects from MySpace profiles, and make a case for Web surfing as an art form in itself.

Do Apple Stores Exert 'Gravitational Pull'?

2007-11-27T04:17:10Z

Many Apple retail stores are madhouses on ordinary weekends, so it's no surprise they were crowded on Black Friday. But according to analysts, some of whom are studying the company's holiday traffic for the first time, Apple's performance is worth paying attention to.

According to Piper Jaffray, Apple stores exert "what can best be described as a gravitational pull" on mall shoppers. A shopper walking within 25 feet of an entrance has a 27% chance of going in, said analyst Gene Munster, whose firm spent six hours monitoring foot traffic at Apple stores this weekend. Most of them don't buy anything, he added, and Apple stores are often in high-traffic parts of shopping centers, but this signals a possible shift in buying intentions to Macs from PCs.

Bloggers React to Amazon's 'Ugly Duckling'

2007-11-20T04:21:00Z

Amazon.com Inc.'s new e-book reader, Kindle, has only been on sale for a few hours, but the blogosphere already has a lot to say about it.

Gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo are buzzing about the device's free wireless capability and odd design. Media and publishing bloggers, some responding to Newsweek's nearly 5,000-word advance look, are discussing what Kindle means for the e-books industry and reading itself. Other tech bloggers are hashing out its price tag ($399) and the notion of having to pay for blog feeds.

And everyone has an opinion, mostly negative, about how it looks. A sample description: "like a prop from an old sci-fi horror flick."

Amazon customers have weighed in, too, with more than 100 reviews already online. Kindle, so far, is rated 2.5 stars out of 5.

Document-Sharing Web Site Finds Racy Content Piling Up

2007-11-16T17:06:17Z

When a group of college students launched the document-sharing Web site Scribd.com, they envisioned it as a place where they and others could publish term papers online.

Scribd, which allows anyone to upload documents much like YouTube lets users post videos online, has grown quickly since its September 2006 debut. Users have added more than 350,000 documents in various languages, ranging from instructions for solving a Rubik's Cube to the sheet music from Johann Sebastian Bach's "Ave Maria." Groups dedicated to sharing everything from Federal Communications Commission reports to Japanese comic books have sprung up.

But rivaling Scribd's growing collection of schoolwork, public documents and other miscellanea is a significant amount of adult content, which the start-up has taken pains to downplay while it decides whether the explicit material will stay or go. As other Internet destinations that rely on user-generated content have learned -- from photo-sharing sites like Flickr to video sites like YouTube and Veoh -- keeping the site "clean" while not alienating users is a central challenge.

Read more (subscription required; contact me for a copy)

Nasdaq Loses 6.5% in a Rough Week

2007-11-09T22:22:07Z

Google, RIM and Other Highfliers Lead the Retreat

The Nasdaq Composite Index sank 7% in three days and ended the week down 6.5%, as highfliers like Google and Apple reversed course midweek and dropped sharply for three straight sessions.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 68.06 points, or 2.5%, to close Friday at 2627.94. It was the Nasdaq's biggest three-day drop in more than five years, as investors fled large tech stocks that had surged in recent months.

Read more or comment on the related blog entry

Sex-Ed Podcast Is Frank, Funny and Controversial

2007-11-09T03:04:54Z

"The Midwest Teen Sex Show," a new video podcast that has drawn thousands of viewers, aims to teach teens about sex using risqué sketches, explicit language and anecdotes that draw on the teenage experiences of its two 28-year-old creators.

Read more or comment on the related blog entry

In This Film Industry It Really Helps to Be a Blockhead

2007-10-07T03:00:16Z

Young Cineastes Find Lego a Congenial Medium for the Age of YouTube

In the three-minute film "Cognizance," a hit man on his way to his next target wordlessly reflects on his life. He walks past shoppers browsing in stores, children on a merry-go-round, a young couple embracing. Finally, he spots his intended victim across a busy street, and, as the soundtrack music by Coldplay swells, he reconsiders and drops his gun in an alley.

As the killer turns and begins to walk home, he finds himself facing the barrel of another man's gun. A subtle smile crosses his placid, yellow face as the screen fades to black.

One reviewer said he was "overwhelmed with emotion" by the film. Another called it "a gleaming gem," adding that it was "required viewing for anyone interested in our little plastic world."

"Cognizance" is one of hundreds of movies known as "brickfilms" that are getting attention on YouTube and other video-sharing sites. Amateur filmmakers use Lego pieces to create characters and scenes, sometimes spending months painstakingly arranging and rearranging the blocks before the camera. Re-creations of famous moments in "Star Wars" and "Titanic," faithfully rendered in the primary colors of Lego pieces and stitched together from thousands of stop-motion frames, have drawn hundreds of thousands of viewings. Many of the productions are original films with elaborate plotlines, soundtracks and voice-overs.

The growing genre is driven by a lively online community of would-be Spielbergs who swap tips on message boards about tackling the unique challenges of the medium.

A New Short Story Imagines Google as a Bad Big Brother

2007-09-27T00:51:02Z

In science-fiction author Cory Doctorow's short story "Scroogled," a woman shrugs when she sees "Immigration--Powered by Google" on an airport sign, but that's just the beginning of the search giant's presence in a not-too-distant future.

The story, published in Radar Magazine's latest issue, envisions a world in which Google turns into Big Brother. Customs agents grill travelers about their search queries, public places are swept by Webcams and officials look for terrorist connections in social-networking sites. All of this is made possible by Google's powerful search tools and the company's willingness to share its trove of personal data with the government.

While a work of fiction, Mr. Doctorow, 36 years old, one of the editors of the popular blog Boing Boing, said his story builds on his real concerns about the amount of information that Google and others collect and store about Web users, including search histories, email and videos. Its publication has sparked online discussions about online privacy and the plausibility of Mr. Doctorow's scenario.

Asked about the Orwellian story, a Google spokeswoman responded: "Google is proud to offer a range of innovative products that have proven to be both useful and trusted by our users. User trust is central to our business and that's why we aggressively protect our users' privacy."

Mr. Doctorow spoke with me about "Scroogled," why he's fond of Google despite his dystopian tale and why it's hard to get people worried about online privacy.

IT Security Risks

2007-07-30T23:44:10Z

Security expert Mark Lobel of PricewaterhouseCoopers talks with me about the common things employees do on the Internet to jeopardize company security.

The Latest Inbox Scourge: Spam Disguised as PDFs

2007-07-27T08:43:28Z

A new type of spam has been finding its way into inboxes by taking advantage of a well-worn technology: PDF files.

In recent weeks, spammers have been bypassing corporate email filters by hiding their content in PDF attachments instead of the body of messages. Like most junk email, the messages hawk things like penny stocks, prescription drugs and lotteries.

The so-called PDF spam is the latest volley in the cat-and-mouse game between spam senders and network defenders. Despite the federal Can-Spam Act of 2003 and heavy spending by corporations on antispam technologies, junk email remains a problem. It accounts for more than three-quarters of email transmitted over public networks, according to Ferris Research Inc., a San Francisco market-research firm. Spammer techniques have become increasingly sophisticated as filtering methods have improved, and spam fighters admit that they frequently play a reactive role.

Discord Over Dewey

2007-07-21T00:12:26Z

A New Library in Arizona Fans a Heated Debate Over What Some Call the 'Googlization' of Libraries

By all accounts, patrons of the Perry Branch Library in Gilbert, Ariz., are happy with the new digs.

Since the doors opened last month, visitors have checked out about 900 items a day, far more than the 100 to 150 that typically circulate daily in nearby branches, said Harry Courtright, director of the Maricopa County library district. Part of the branch's appeal has come from the addition of bookstore-like features, including lower shelves, lounge furniture and displays of popular titles.

But it's what's missing from the library that has drawn the most attention: Perry abandoned the Dewey Decimal Classification System for its books, whose spines instead carry labels with plain-English subjects such as "history" and "weddings." Instead of locating books by the traditional numerical system, patrons use a computerized catalog to find out which subject a book has been filed under, and then follow signs posted throughout the library. Many visitors skip the catalog altogether, and just head for the aisles that interest them.

The opening of a Dewey-free facility has sparked heated debate in the library world. "The day that the Maricopa news hit, I just had to steel myself," said Karen Schneider, a moderator for PubLib, an online discussion list where comments blasting the move have been running about even with those praising the new library.

In defending Dewey, some have decried what they call the "Barnes & Nobling" and "Googlization" of libraries. On blogs and newsgroups, more than one commenter fumed "Have you ever tried finding something at a bookstore?" Some pointed out that Dewey is already essentially a list of subject headings, whose call numbers specify exactly where each book should be placed on the shelves. Many libraries print those subject headings on shelves under books.

Others, however, praised Perry's decision, saying doing away with the inscrutable codes makes libraries easier to browse and more approachable.

The iPhone: Not a Cure for Cancer

2007-06-29T04:57:53Z

Not bad, Richard Gardner. In an otherwise straightforward Apple research note, the Citigroup analyst (and a 2003 Best on the Street alum) tucks in, just after the company's balance sheet, "Figure 1. I just arrived from Mars. Just what is this 'iPhone,' anyway?" Under "What the iPhone is," he lists 8 hours talk time and 2MP camera, among other features.

Under "What the iPhone is not:" "Incompatible with AT&T's 3G HSDPA high-speed wireless network; Not a cure for cancer."

But it gets better when he lists tips on obtaining one (two max) of the coveted Jesusphones: