Secrets of Internet Fame
Is being famous on the Internet the same as being famous in the offline world?
I was given to thinking about this when I checked out a new Web site called Preople.com. (No, that's not a spelling error.) It was set up by a Dutch entrepreneur called Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten , who would get into regular arguments with a friend over who was more famous. "He was on the radio, I was on TV. He was in a magazine, I was on a panel," Mr. Veldhuijzen van Zanten explains.
So the pair typed their names into Google, as does everyone these days, to see who had the higher number of search results. "My name gives you about 1,500 hits. His 1,200. So I was more famous," Mr. Veldhuijzen van Zanten recalls. This gave him an idea for a Web site where people could measure their online fame: Preople.com was born, using Google and a "secret recipe" of other variables. (I'll now pause while you run a search on your own name. Don't be ashamed: Everybody does it.)
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All very cute, but does it mean anything? Just because a lot of Web sites mention your name, does that make you famous? Not really. But it does highlight an interesting phenomenon: Being well-known online isn't exactly the same thing as being well-known offline. The best test is this: Spears, Houston, Depp, Beckham, Blair. It's likely you've heard of most of these people, and could give them their right first names. But how about Ito, Scoble, Doctorow, Kottke, Rubel? Heard of any of them?
Internet's A-List
This is the thing. Those second five are members of the "technorati," the blogging A-list of people who are famous online. Not as famous as Britney, Whitney, Johnny, David and Tony, but famous. Joi Ito, for example, is a Japanese entrepreneur who gets as many hits on Google as his prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi. Compare the two names in Factiva, a database of mostly offline media co-owned by Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of this newspaper, and there's no contest. Doing a search across all dates, the Japanese prime minister gets more than 750 times as many mentions as Mr. Ito. Another example: Robert Scoble is a American marketing executive from Microsoft who writes an online journal, or blog. Who's more popular? He, or his boss, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer? Offline, Mr. Scoble gets mentioned about 150 times less than Mr. Ballmer on Factiva. Online, it's a different story: Mr. Scoble is ahead, scoring 651,000 against Mr. Ballmer's 599,000.
Clearly there's a disconnect between the big names online and those offline. But what does this tell us? First off, we probably shouldn't get too worked up about online fame. Britney Spears is still the most famous person online as she is, probably, offline. But something is changing.
The Internet, it seems, is much more effective than the offline world at propelling people to limited fame; to being famous in certain circles. As Alex Halavais, a blogger and assistant professor of informatics at the University of Buffalo, puts it: "The Internet makes those circles much easier to draw." The explosion of blogs -- online journals, short for web logs -- has speeded up this process. Now anyone with expertise in a subject, from knitting to online gaming, can gain respect and influence by writing about it online. This is different from how one might gain influence or fame offline.
As Mr. Ito the Japanese entrepreneur puts it: "The ability to cause people to get attention online is probably the main definition of fame. In the real world, it probably means more about the ability to influence the flow of money." Offline, in other words, fame and money usually go hand in hand (when was the last time you met a famous poor person?). Online, it's more about what you say: "The way you become famous on the Internet," Mr. Ito reckons, "is probably mostly done by being interesting."
Online Voice
I polled a few other technorati and there seems to be general agreement. David Weinberger, a writer, blogger and consultant, talks about how "Internet fame is about the appeal of someone's 'voice'." Mr. Scoble -- the Microsoft blogger -- says "I don't look at it as a numbers thing but a chance to talk to the people you want to." Steve Rubel, a PR consultant in the U.S. who has gained prominence by writing a blog that straddles PR, technology and journalism, says it's not about preaching but "about the conversation" with readers. In other words, developing a following online is nothing like developing a following offline, where your remoteness, mystique and inaccessibility are likely to be part of your appeal.
Online, it's the opposite: It's all about holding a discussion, allowing people to add comments to your blog entries, writing knowing that however big a name you are there will be people who disagree with you -- and giving them the space and respect to do so. Fame online, in some ways, is nothing like offline fame. (This may explain why the other thing I noticed about these guys is they don't like being thought of as famous. All were keen I emphasize they hadn't sought this high a profile, and thought fame was the wrong word. We just couldn't agree on an alternative.)
So where does this take us? Mr. Ito says that as the Internet becomes more ubiquitous -- via wireless connections and mobile phones -- "cyberspace" as an idea will start to die. Then the gap between prominence online and offline will start to die. Indeed, for Mr. Ito that's already the case: In his work on government committees in Japan he has already found his online "fame" smoothing the way with bureaucrats and old-world moguls.
Meanwhile, in his social life Mr. Ito can't remember visiting a city anywhere on his travels where bloggers and other followers of his online writings hadn't already set up a dinner or other gathering for him, using his appearance as a chance to meet and chat. All this is arranged ahead of time via readers on his Web site; he just turns up. It sounds a bit like a world tour without the groupies or heavy sound equipment, I suggested. Yes, said Mr. Ito. But it's not just about him. "It's not about worship, but about the likelihood that something interesting will happen."
Now, that sounds like a new kind of fame.
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The Dark Side of Online Acclaim
Not everything is sweetness and light about online fame: Some of the sleaziness of offline fame does creep in, with Internet adding the ingredients of scale and speed. Take the fate of a Canadian teenager Ghyslain Raza, whose private 2002 recording of him wielding a golf-ball retriever as if it were a Star Wars light saber found its way onto the Internet, and from there to millions upon millions of home computers. Then there's American Gary Brolsma, whose bedroom lip-syncing to a Romanian pop song last December catapulted him into similar levels of reluctant fame. These were relatively spontaneous bursts of fame, although they were aided in part by Web sites such as Waxy.org, whose Andy Baio makes a point of trying to trace the individuals in such video clips.
Then there's the spin-off industry of creative "remakes" of these videos, and the inevitable slide into mythology as the clips are immortalized, if that's the right word, at online shrines (check out garybrolsma.net) and offline. (Readers of Waxy.org reckon they've identified several shows paying homage to Mr. Raza, widely known as the Star Wars Kid, along with at least one computer game.) Neither of these young men courted or were happy with the attention they received, but that's often true of offline fame as well. Not everything, it seems, is changing.
在网上出名的秘诀
在网上出名与在现实生活中成名能混为一谈么？
我在浏览一个新成立的网站Preople.com时，不由得想到了这个问题。荷兰企业家范?让丹(Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten)创建了这家网站。让丹经常和他的朋友争论谁更出名，用他的话说就是，如果他的朋友出现在电台，他就要上电视；如果他的朋友在杂志上露面，他就得出席广播或电视上的研讨会。
为了一争高下，两人还在Google上输入自己的名字，从搜索结果中看包括谁的名字的网页更多。让丹表示，包括他名字的网页数量有1,500个，而他朋友的网页数量只有1,200个。因此，让丹得出的结论是他的名气要比他朋友大一些。这次比试还促使他产生了一个创意，建立一个网站来衡量人们在网上的知名度，Preople.com就是在这种情况下应运而生的。这个网站用Google以及由其他变量组成的一套秘密规则来确定一个人的互联网知名度。（说道这，我得停下来，因为我猜想读者你也准备在网上搜索一下自己的名字、看看自己的知名度了。不用害臊，其实每个人都有这种想法。）
看起来这是一条衡量知名度的捷径，但实际情况是否如此呢？仅仅因为很多网站提到了你的名字就能说明你家喻户晓吗？并不尽然。但这确实反映出一种有意思的现象：在网上大名鼎鼎的人物在现实生活有可能是籍籍无名。我们不妨进行这样一个测试：输入斯皮尔斯(Spears)、休斯顿(Houston)、戴普(Depp)、贝克汉姆(Beckham)、布莱尔(Blair)这些姓氏。很有可能你听说过其中的大部分姓氏，而且也能正确地说出来这些姓氏对应的名字来。但如果输入Ito、Scoble、Doctorow、Kottke、Rubel会是一个什么样的结果？你听说过这些姓氏么？
这就是问题所在。后面提到的5个人是technorati网站的成员，一群具有很高网络知名度的博客（网络日志作者）。虽然他们的名气不像布兰妮?斯皮尔斯(Britney Spears)、惠特尼?休斯顿(Whitney Houston)、强尼?戴普(Johnny Depp)、大卫?贝克汉姆(David Beckham)、托尼?布莱尔(Tony Blair)那样闻名遐迩，但也是小有名气。例如，Google的搜索结果显示日本企业家Joi Ito的知名度与日本首相小泉纯一郎(Junichiro Koizumi)不相上下。但在Factiva（搜索对象基本上为传统媒体）的搜索结果中，Joi Ito的知名度根本无法和小泉纯一郎相提并论，它搜索到的小泉纯一郎的网页数量是Joi Ito的750倍以上。《华尔街日报》的出版商道琼斯公司(Dow Jones & Co.)是Factiva的所有者之一。
显然，网上和现实生活中的大人物毫不相干。但这说明了什么？首先，我们或许不应该对网上成名过于兴奋。布兰妮?斯皮尔斯仍然是网上最有名的人物，正如她在现实生活中一样。但有些事在变化。
互联网似乎在推动人们达到一定知名度或者在某些圈子里成名方面比现实生活来得更为有效。正如布法罗大学(University of Buffalo)信息学副教授亚历克斯?哈拉维斯(Alex Halavais)说的：“互联网让大家更容易形成小圈子。”哈拉维斯自己也是一位博客。网络日志的盛行已经加速了这样的进程。现在，所有具备一定专长的人们，无论是编织还是网络游戏，都可能通过撰写网络日志来获得尊敬和影响力。这与人们在现实生活中可能用来获得影响力或名气的方式截然不同。
日本企业家Joi Ito这样认为：网上出名的定义可能主要是一种促使人们关注自己的能力。在现实生活中，名气可能更多地意味著影响资金流动的能力。换言之，在现实生活中，名气和金钱通常是息息相关的（你什么时候遇到过一位著名的穷人？）。在网上，名气更多地取决于你的言论：Ito认为，“大多数情况下，在互联网上出名的途径可能就是做到有趣。”
我对technorati网站的其他几位博客进行了调查，他们似乎也有一些共识。大卫?温伯格(David Weinberger)谈到，“互联网名气其实就是某人'声音'的吸引力。”温伯格是一位作家、博客和顾问。微软的博客斯科博(Scoble)称，“我并不把它看成一个排名，而是一个和你想交流的人们谈话的机会。”史蒂夫?鲁贝尔(Steve Rubel)称，这不是说教，而是与读者的“对话”。鲁贝尔是一位公共关系顾问，他通过撰写一个跨越公共关系、技术和新闻专业的网络日志而一举成名。换言之，在网上发展一批追随者和在现实生活中完全不同，在现实生活中，你的冷漠、你的神秘感以及你的难以接近都可能成为你的吸引力的一部分。
在网上，事情正好相反：那就是展开一场讨论，让大家将他们的评论加入你的网络日志，写写东西，知道无论你怎样出名，还是会出现反对的声音－－给这些人以空间发表异议，并尊重他们的看法。从某些方面来看，在网上成名与在现实生活中完全不同。（这可能会解释我注意到的这些博客的另一个方面，那就是他们都不喜欢被认为有名。我要强调的是，他们都急于表明自己从未刻意追求这样高的知名度，并认为名气是一个错误的用词。)
那么，网络将把我们带向何方？Ito称，随著互联网越来越无处不在－－通过无线连接和移动电话－－“网络空间”的概念将被淘汰。然后，在网上和在现实生活中的名气之间的差距将消失。确实，对于Ito而言这已经成为事实：在日本政府几个委员会的工作中，他已经发现自己在网上的名气有助于理顺与那些官僚和传统权贵的关系。
与此同时，在他的社交生活中，Ito旅行所到之处，都有博客和其他追随者为他设宴或进行其他形式的聚会来欢迎他，利用他的出现作为见面和聊天的机会。所有这一切都是通过Ito网站的读者提前安排的；他只要现身就可以了。我认为这听起来有点儿像没有随团乐迷或笨重音响设备的全球巡演。的确如此，Ito说。但这不只是关于他。“这不是崇拜，而是关乎又会发生什么趣事的可能性。”
那听起来像是一种新的名气。
