Pop17

The same way Hollywood breeds superstars and celebrities, the internet has quickly become a medium for people to gain their own fame, power, influence, and stardom. Just take Michael Arrington from TechCrunch, the rise of his popular blog landed him on Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World list. Anyone can gain instant “stardom” or popularity over night if they post a hit video on YouTube. Then there are the founders and visionaries who build billion dollar companies while dozens of conferences, events, and tech parties have sprung to glamorize even the dumbest of startups. Virtual worlds, such as SecondLife, have even popped up giving rise to new microcosms and social environments that utilize the internet, computer screen, and 3-D representations of real life to facilitate communication and interaction between people around the world. No matter how you look at it, the internet has helped form a new ecosystem.

Sarah Austin, a student and entrepreneur at Parson, seeks to cover this new micro fame on her blog Pop17.com where she calls herself an online lifecaster and video journalist. She describes Pop17 as a two-to-three minute daily exploration to track, analyze and understand the new cultural phenomenon of online micro-celebrity. Her site has video interviews, news, and personal musings on how these trends/success stories came to be while profiling who these new influentials are. The site and concept is similar to how we cover college startups and entrepreneurs.Continue Reading...