Dec

19

Forbes posts linkbait and I’m falling for it

December 19, 2007 |

Forbes yesterday night posted a list of the 25 top web celebrities.

For the Techmeme crowd, the list makes total sense, but with the exception of Perez Hilton, Matt Drudge and Markos Moulitsas, no normal person would ever recognize any of the names on the list.

Did you ever ask a non-techie friend who Jeff Jarvis is? Mike Arrington? Scoble? Xeni Jardin? Pete Cashmore? Or Darren Rowse?

The percentage of people knowing these folks is probably lower than the usage numbers for Google Docs.

Here is how they define the “Web Celeb”:

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, billionaire Mark Cuban or journalist Michelle Malkin–and leaves us with a pool of people whose fame depends on the Internet.

But where are the Tay Zondays on this list, though (he has more than 15.000.000 Youtube views!)? The “Will it Blend: people? For that matter, where is Ron Paul? As much as I dislike him, the man’s political campaign wouldn’t exist without the net (or at least the reddit part of it).

So overall, this is some pretty smart linkbait by Forbes. Congrats to everybody who made it. Just remember, in Rapid City, nobody knows you, but this guy in the following video might be a star by December 24th:

 

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3 Comments so far

  1. Alexander van Elsas on December 19, 2007 9:27 am

    What? I’m not on that list? What did I do wrong to deserve that ;-)

  2. Frederic on December 19, 2007 9:47 am

    My thoughts exactly :)

  3. linkbaiting services on January 29, 2008 9:41 pm

    Fantastic post!

    We’ve been doing humor hook linkbait on the web since 1995 at Zug.com

    It would be great to get your feedback on the comedy linkbait angle!

    Shelah
    Marketing Assistant
    http://www.zug.com/us/about/link-baiting.html

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