Celebs smell success on the web

Reuters

FAR FROM DOMESTICATED: Ashton Kutcher who is married to Demi Moore says he hates being called a house husband.

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Forget perfume, underwear and cosmetics, today's A-list celebrities are moonlighting as technology entrepreneurs.

Hot on the heels of MC Hammer and Will Ferrell, Ashton Kutcher has launched an internet startup, BlahGirls.com, which features animated clips of three South Park-style girls - Tiffany, Brittney and Krystle - riffing on pop culture.

Kutcher launched the site this week at the Silicon Valley technology startup conference, TechCrunch50. It has already signed its first advertiser - Vitamin Water.

Kutcher told The Los Angeles Times that his inspiration came from the lively backseat conversations of his three stepdaughters, which he overheard as he drove them to school.

"Listening to them in the back seat, all I heard was 'Blah, blah, blah'," he said.

The funny but often crass videos - pitched at women aged between 13-35 - would be updated two to three times a week and focus on all things celebrity. Additionally, blog posts featuring celebrity photos and other teenage girl ramblings are published several times a day.

Kutcher is married to actress Demi Moore, who was also at the conference but, unlike Kutcher, was not swarmed by gawking geeks. Blogger Fred Davis, who attended the conference, said mega-blogger Robert Scoble didn't even realise who Moore was when he was introduced to her.

"Ashton was surprisingly tech savvy, keeping up the buzzword-laden banter with some of the biggest geeks around," Davis wrote.

At last year's TechCrunch40 conference, MC Hammer unveiled a website, DanceJam.com, which allows people to upload videos of themselves dancing for the community to rate.

Meanwhile, Will Ferrell's video sharing site specialising in comedy, FunnyOrDie.com, has been a runaway success. In August it entertained over eight million unique visitors.

Paris Hilton's spoof video response to US presidential candidate John McCain's campaign ad, which portrayed Hilton in a negative light, was created by FunnyOrDie. It was an instant hit and has garnered over seven million hits so far.

"I think people in Hollywood are hungry to figure out how to make viable content for the web," Kutcher told The Los Angeles Times.

"Right now it's an artist's medium because it can be done cheap and fast. It forces people to be creative. But there is not a lot of money to be made there just yet. In some ways, I think it's being viewed as the Wild West a little bit. If you can get there first, you can be Charlie Chaplin."

Kutcher's future plans include the impending launch of a user-generated version of his hit MTV series Punk'd, which would allow users to perform pranks on their friends.

Those expecting Kutcher's animated Blahgirls to poke fun at celebrities in the style of Perez Hilton will be disappointed.

He told The New York Times the comedy would be derived from the fanaticism of the girls.

"We're not taking potshots at famous people. That's not what we're about," Kutcher said.

- © Fairfax NZ News