What Happened to Celebrity-Gossip.net?
Celebrity-Gossip.net was an entertainment blog describing itself as a provider of up-to-date news from Hollywood to Miami to New York City and everything from news about the hottest stars to music and movie reviews.
The site invited those who wanted “to know more about Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Orlando Bloom, or the guys from Average Joe.”
However, those who take this invitation seriously and try to visit Celebrity-Gossip.net today will be disappointed to find that the website is no longer active.
What happened to the site that once promised its visitors to keep them up-to-date on the latest breaking news in the entertainment industry? We took some time to find out by following the site’s history, identifying its owners, and sampling some of the celebrity gossip it featured.
THE HISTORY OF CELEBRITY-GOSSIP.NET
Celebrity-Gossip.net was first captured online in 2004. According to Crunchbase.com, the website was established when a group of girls from the Midwest, New York City, and Los Angeles formed a gossip network in 2003. Because they were so passionate about celebrity gossip, they decided to call themselves the Gossip Girls.
A LinkedIn profile associated with Celebrity-Gossip.net indicates that the owner of the website was Gossip Center Network. This was after Gossip Girls had been purchased by Brand Technologies, a company incorporated in 2003.
The same LinkedIn profile indicates that Gossip Center Network also owned GossipCenter.com and CelebSpin.com.
SUCCESS
Celebrity-Gossip.net was a successful venture right from the start. Crunchbase.com attributes this success to the site’s dedication to quality content, which attracted “hundreds of thousands of loyal users and exposure to millions of new readers every month.”
As is always the case with a successful website, Celebrity-Gossip.net was soon attracting the attention of big companies with deep pockets. In 2006, Brand Technologies purchased the site.
Brian Wallace tells the story of Gossip Girls’ success in his 2009 article published by Mashable.com. Wallace writes, “Perhaps most impressively, the Cleveland, OH-based Gossip Girls recorded approximately 6000% growth in traffic and a jump from $67k to over $700k in revenues in 2008.”
Wallace reports that all this success was achieved by a staff of less than 10.
By the end of 2012, Gossip Center Network was under the ownership of Bluefin Media, which was then responsible for publishing Celebrity-Gossip.net.
A press statement indicates that “Bluefin Media was incorporated in 2003 under … Brand Technologies by the founders of Rawhide Internet Services (one of the top 10 SEO/SEM companies in the world that was sold to Exact Advertising in 2003).”
THE CONTENT
It would be a travesty of justice if we told the history of Celebrity-Gossip.net without peeping into some of the gossip on the site.
The site had a list of top stories based on what readers were mostly searching for, so we decided to look at some of the gossip that attracted the most attention.
Here are a few celebrities that were frequently featured on the website:
BRITNEY SPEARS
It’s not surprising that most people visiting Celebrity-Gossip.net were searching for news about Britney Spears. After all, she is beautiful and talented and has sold more than 100 million records globally and 70 million in the US.
Mix that beauty and talent with drama, and you have a story that will keep people coming back for more.
Considering that controversy sells, most of the articles about Spears on Celebrity-Gossip.net report about the singer’s troubles. You would see titles like “Britney Spears Hit K-Fed with a Frying Pan” or “Britney Spears’ Struggle with Motherhood.”
Even though the easy path would be to focus only on Spears’ negative drama, Celebrity-Gossip.net also covered some positive news about the pop star. For instance, in an article titled “Britney’s launching a Makeup & Perfume Line,” the site writes, “She is a talented, fashionable woman who appeals to a young and international consumer base.”
LINDSAY LOHAN
If one celebrity is comparable to Spears in terms of beauty, talent, and drama, it is Lindsay Lohan. Lohan was in the top ten names searched on Celebrity-Gossip.net.
A piece titled “Lindsay Lohan Lost, Now Found” pokes fun at the celebrity’s numerous challenges. It starts, “Believe it or not,Lindsay Lohan is lost! At least, that’s the story according to a poster found on the gate of Paris Hilton’s Hollywood Hills home.”
According to the article, Hilton’s poster continues, “All the change in my couch will be offered for any information leading to the safe return of my dog.”
Another piece published by Celebrity-Gossip.net titled “Lindsay Lohan Sued by Car Chase Passenger” reported that Miss Lohan had pursued the accuser “while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.”
JENNIFER ANISTON
If there is one thing we can learn from Celebrity-Gossip.net, the site covered real big stars, Jennifer Aniston being one of them.
In another piece lending credence to the assumption that drama sells, Celebrity-Gossip.net creates a somewhat misleading headline: “Jennifer Aniston’s Ex Talks To Press.”
With a headline like this, one would expect to get some juicy details about a break-up. However, if you get to read the piece, the only thing you will walk away knowing is that the ex, Paul, had refused to talk about Aniston.
VICTORIA BECKHAM
If you were running a gossip website, especially around 2004, and no one was searching for Victoria Beckham, then something would have been wrong with that site.
Stories covering Beckham were primarily positive. For instance, one piece reports the challenges she met after moving to the United States in 2007.
According to the article, “Since her move to the United States, Victoria Beckham has had to endure some serious assimilation, namely our incessant paparazzi and press obsession. But she’s taking it all in her stride.”
WHAT THEN HAPPENED TO CELEBRITY-GOSSIP.NET?
Celebrity-Gossip.net was last online in July 2017. At this time, it was owned by Brand Technologies Inc. and published by Bluefin Media. The website’s Twitter handle was last updated in 2010.
It’s not clear why Bluefin Media stopped publishing Celebrity-Gossip.net. We can speculate that, like many other once-successful online publications, its owners may have concluded that the site wasn’t making them much money or didn’t fit into their strategy anymore.
