Edited by author 03-20-2002 04:28 PM
It's difficult to compare having a famous presence on the internet to having a famous presence in other forms of media; the ratio of viewers to content sources is very low online, and very high for TV & movies. Even with hundreds of TV channels, there are still millions of TV viewers; people & ideas are funnelled down into a very small space which attracts many people simultaneously. The internetizens who we'd consider famous became so only because of media crossover (Mahir being interviewed for magazines, TV, etc.), becoming introduced into the many-to-one media market.

On the internet, there are almost as many websites as there are people online; I know it's somewhat of an exaggeration, but the numbers are closer in that respect than in the other media that's being compared. There's no way to have the internet's focus put directly on yourself, unless you're lucky enough to have many major websites link to you simultaneously, and even then your link will slowly fall off the radar as new links are found. Nobody gets their website viewed by millions every single week for 5 years, while sitcom actors are paid big bucks to have that sort of attention. If you're lucky, a website develops a crew of devoted fans, but because there's so MUCH out there it's not possible to have constant and massive attention over the internet.

(oops -- I'm not Powazek; I'm a different Derek. Sorry for any confusion :)