Concierge service for celebrity bloggers?

Celebrity bloggers, especially of the Hollywood variety, evoke a lot of skepticism in the lay public. When a famous website like Huffington Post offers concierge services to its busy celebrity bloggers, the question over authenticity also comes into picture.

There are many celebrity bloggers there who are authentic, consistent and good enough to be featured on best blogs list. Wil Wheaton, Alyssa Milano, Moby, Alec Baldwin, Jeff Bridges, Zack Braff and John Mayers are some who come to mind.

Wil Wheaton of Stand By Me and Star Trek fame has been blogging since 2001 at wilwheaton.typepad.com. He has launched an alternative career of a writer from blogging.

Then there is Moby, the musician, who writes on moby.com/journal. He covers his life as a musician, his political views, his life in New York, gigs and his social concerns. Forbes has rated his blog in the top five celebrity blogs.

Alyssa Milano, an avid baseball fan writes about the game and has even tied up with the Major League Baseball’s site mlb.com and writes onAlyssa.mlbblogs.com. Jeff Bridges is another surprise blogger with more sketches and drawings on his blog than writings and he comes off as a real renaissance man.

But a research by Dr Kaye Sweetser of Georgia University on celebrity blogs has revealed that 41 per cent of celebrity blogs reveal personal thoughts, one third discuss experiences and only one fourth discuss recent events and news. And 18 percent expressed political views.

As the executive editor of Huffington Post says, blogs are a platform to allow celebrities to bring attention to their causes.

Blogs are definitely a direct venue for celebrities to disseminates their views on any and everything hence comes with a lot of responsibility. But how many are equipped enough to deal with it?

The reaction to Huffington Post’s concierge services has been extreme with commentators having a field day. People have a hard time believing the authenticity of any blogs written by celebrities, it is largely held that most employed ghost writers or public relations units do the task.

A post on mediabistro.com comments, “You know who else could use a blog concierge service? Actual bloggers. Like us! All this typing is such a nuisance.”

Gawker.com columnist Hamilton Nolan says, “The future of the media truly has become an amazing, democratic space.”

“The Huffington Post … has even learned how to effectively feature celebrity blogs to increase traffic. It used to be a time where celebrities did not want to share their two-cents on politics,” writes Shane Daniels on globalgrind.com.