Mario Lavandeira, 28, is not just another celebrity gossip blogger. His blog, Perez Hilton, receives ~3 million unique visitors per day [you read it correct, that's per day]. If you ever thought of advertising on Perez Hilton blog, a 150x200 pixel ad running for a week would cost you a whooping $9K. [Compare that with TechCrunch where a 30-day ad campaign costs just $10K or even BoingBoing where a 125x125 text ad costs only $350 for a week. ]
Perez Hilton is written by just one blogger who publishes more than two dozen stories in one day single-hand. His blog has close to ~7k entries and half a million comments from blog readers. Simply amazing.
Unlike Hollywood magazines and gossip tabloids, Perez Hilton has no reporters or paparazzi on his payroll for capturing images of Britney Spears' Crotch or pregnant Katie Holmes and other celebrity shots that the world is so obsessed about.
He usually sources the pictures from the internet, a practice not liked by the media companies. In one case, Hilton had somehow obtained and posted the photos even before the actual owners had a chance to put them on its own website.
Now X17, a paparazzi photo agency, has decided to slap a $7.5 million lawsuit on Perez alleging that he has used 51 photos without permission, payment or credit.
Hilton is not willing to give up and says that he is fighting for the entire blogger industry. Will be a very interesting case to watch.