Celebrity Gossip Blogger Perez Hilton Tops Web Celeb 25

Forbes has released the Web Celeb 25 list for 2007. Controversial gossip blogger Perez Hilton has replaced YouTube star LonelyGirl15, who topped the list last year.

Who is a web celebrity? “Web Celeb” is 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. This year they screened 200 candidates and narrowed down to the top 25 Web Celebs 2007.

How is the Web Celeb list created?

Each candidate was ranked in five areas: Web references as calculated by Google; traffic ranking of their home page as calculated by Alexa; Technorati rank of their primary Web site or blog; and TV/radio mentions and press clips compiled from Factiva. We gave candidates bonus points if they regularly published their own videoblog or podcast. All six categories were then totaled to produce a final score.

Most popular web celebrity this year is Perez Hilton, a controversial gossip blogger whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, and whom celebrities like to watch out for…

The list reads like a who’s who of the blogosphere – there is Michael Arrington from Techcrunch, Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing, Gina Trapani from Lifehacker, Robert Scoble of Scobleizer, Om Malik from GigaOm, Kevin Rose from Digg and Darren Rowse from Problogger and many more you already know.

Now some names I had never heard before -
Harry Knowles – Movie critic at aintitcool.com
Kathy Sierra – Programming instructor, blogger at headrush.typepad.com
Will Leitch – Sports blogger at deadspin.com

Even Fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons) who started a secret, pseudonymous blog, posing as the alter ego of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on the list.

Don’t forget to check out Web Celeb 25 list of 2006, topped by Jessica Lee Rose (and you don’t know her!)