Taylor Swift is a country music singer who is best known for her songs that relate stories about bad boyfriend break-ups. She recently decided to build a seawall in front of her $17.7 million mansion, for which she paid in cold, hard cash.

The new construction has enraged her neighbors in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and they want her out. Continue reading »

It is said that there are two main magnets for online traffic to websites and blogs – information and entertainment. Most online searchers are looking for real information but a good number would like to be entertained as well. Is the proliferation of entertainment sites any indication that this is a fact? Entertainment sites can be found through blog listings such as those provided by a lifestyle blog directory. It is also highly possible that they can be found through word of mouth since most tend to cater to topics that easily go viral such as the latest Hollywood scandal or fashion statement.

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Natural Curiosity for the Lives Of the Popular

Entertainment sites know very well how powerful a name of a celebrity is in a blog post title. Most of the time, I get personally disappointed when upon reading the whole post, I found nothing remotely related to the celebrity. The fact of the matter is that it worked. I clicked on it, read it, and so the site got its desired visit. Blame this kind of scenario to the natural curiosity of the public for the lives of the rich and famous. Ergo – online traffic.

Natural Like for Something Entertaining

When we see a post that looks like fun especially those shared by friends , what do we usually do? Click on it and read further. When we chance on a viral post which appears to be getting the attention of many, don’t we try to find out why? Once we find out that it does entertain, we pass it on as well. Ergo – online traffic.

What Do Entertainment Sites Offer?

Entertainment sites can offer varied articles in all aspects of life with only one common denominator – the entertainment factor. Readers expect to be amused, to enjoy, or have their curiosity satisfied for all the latest happenings around the world. While there are many that choose to concentrate on a specific entertainment niche for example like Hollywood celebrities, others would opt to combine just about anything entertaining like extraordinary talents, trivia, and latest events or gossips involving popular people.

Human Nature Triggers Viral Traffic

The traffic enjoyed by most entertainment sites is mostly triggered by human nature. Human nature is largely unpredictable and can go this way and that so no one will know exactly what the end reaction will be. They know however that as long as they continue to feed human curiosity and likes, they can reasonably be assured of the desired traffic.

The NCAA March Madness and the NBA Playoffs are both the most important dates on basketball fan’s calendars, here’s an infographic that breaks down the stats and data

Via: Equip Supply

A lot of people always find the entertainment scene very interesting and exciting. When watching the news on TV or reading a newspaper, many would not miss the news on celebrities, upcoming films and television shows and the TV and movie industry in general.

If you’re interest is in this field and you see yourself interviewing celebrities and executives in the industry, a degree in journalism or communications would help you pursue a career as an entertainment writer or blogger in the future. Pursuing this path would suit you and allow you to work in an environment where you can bring out the best in you.

Take note, however, that it’s not easy to get into the entertainment industry owing to the stiff competition these days. A good option is to join a college newspaper while you’re still earning your degree and become a reporter. This will develop your writing and interviewing skills early on.

Another option is to create your own entertainment blog. This is an avenue where you can showcase your writing and blogging skills and who knows, advertisers will be attracted to your site and decide to place ads on there. So that’s income for you while you’re still in the process of completing your degree. Continue reading »

It’s not always easy to have a baby and even big stars can suffer from infertility. The following celebrities have in the past all struggled with trying to conceive.

CELINE DION

Canadian singer Celine Dion has two children thanks to IVF.
In 2000, after six IVF attempts she gave birth to her son Rene-Charles. Ten years later in 2010 Céline and her husband Rene Angélil conceived their twin boys Nelson and Eddy thanks to in-vitro-fertilization.

EMMA THOMPSON

The Oscar winning actress and star of Nanny McPhee’s daughter Gaia was conceived by IVF.
She has since tried again but the fertility treatment sadly failed.

MARIAH CAREY

Mariah Carey and her husband Nick Cannon’s twins Moroccan and Monroe were conceived by IVF. Previously, Carey had suffered a high profile miscarriage.

NICOLE KIDMAN

Nicole Kidman has suffered from infertility for many years; she and Tom Cruise adopted because she was unable to conceive, Nicole and Keith Urban’s daughter Sunday Rose was an IVF baby; and their second child was born via a surrogate mother.

COURTNEY COX

After struggling to conceive, and Courtney experiencing a number of  miscarriages. Courtney Cox and David Arquette’s daughter Coco was born in 2004, thanks to IVF. It s thought they did try for more children and it is believed the couple’s recent split was in part due to their struggles with infertility.

JANE SEYMOUR

2014 Golden Globe winning actress Jane Seymour suffered two miscarriages and underwent two unsuccessful rounds of IVF before giving birth to her twin boys in 1995 at her third attempt.

Interestingly, no big male stars have come out and admitted to struggling with male infertility. A trawl of the internet looking for male infertility blogs shows that this is still very much a taboo subject, despite almost 50% of all problems with trying to comceive being due to problems with the man.

Who among our popular celebrities are taking it to Instagram on a regular basis? There are a lot of familiar and popular faces to be found there. Who among them are somewhat into seeming  insta challenges as they regale the public with their consistent and eye-catching contributions to the platform?

Miley Cyrus

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With the tremendous effort to make herself very visible, Miley‘s presence in Instagram is to be expected. In fact, not seeing her there is more surprising. Her efforts seem to be working so far in terms of getting attention. Her Instagram pictures are as colorful as her life.

Kim Kardashian

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Kim Kardashian , visible as she is in the public’s eye, is another expected presence in Instagram. Like the other notoriously regular celebrity Instagram users, Kim takes to the platform for just about everything including some very personal moments best kept private.  Some actually welcome the thought of having a lessened presence of Kim in social media.

Rihanna

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Rihanna is probably one of the most overexposed celebrity in Instagram. She has provided the public a whole gamut of images of herself that usually seem like over-sharing either because they just seem to show too much or mean not much.

If you’re a movie buff, Hollywood might be on the top of your list of places to visit, but you’ll want to add Chicago to that list, too. In Chicago, you can take a variety of tours where some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters were filmed, including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, When Harry Met Sally and The Fugitive.

When planning a trip, you can stay in Chicago hotels that were featured in movies. Scenes from Risky Business, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Mission Impossible were filmed at the Drake. Are you a Batman fan? The penthouse ballroom at the Wyndham Grand Chicago Riverfront was Bruce Wayne’s apartment and the setting of the party scene with the Joker in The Dark Knight.  Continue reading »

After some observers saw the aspect of  “unfair competition” with celebrities dipping their hands into crowd sourcing platforms like Kickstarter to obtain funding, the glaring question has risen. Should celebrities  be using the crowd sourcing platform to fund their personal projects? Being celebrities, don’t they have enough sources within their own circles to make it happen without “depriving ” unknown project creators of the much-needed financial backing. Celebrity projects as it will turn out are only rivaled by Kickstarter games in terms of successful funding.

Reach Me The Movie

This project as proposed by John Herzfeld succeeded in obtaining a little over its $250,000 funding goal. Boasting of an all-star cast with the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Thomas Jane, Tom Berenger, Kyra Sedgwick, and Kelsey Grammer, Herzfeld decided to turn to Kickstarter when the movie project lost an investor. He was able to finish the picture alright and has since cancelled funding activities through the platform.

The Newest Hottest Spike Lee Joint

When writer/director Spike Lee turned to Kickstarter, he did so without much qualms. Claiming that he has used the crowd sourcing platform for some much earlier projects, he sees no reason not to use Kickstarter because he calls himself an Indie filmmaker. According to him, Indie filmmakers are always in search of funding, notwithstanding the fact that he himself is a wealthy filmmaker. Apparently, the financial backers see nothing wrong in it as well as evidenced by his successful bid for funding. He obtained a total of $ 1,418,910 from 6,421 backers, surpassing his funding goal of $ 1,250,000.

Amanda Palmer: The New RECORD, ART BOOK, and TOUR

This is not the first successful attempt to raise funding by musician Amanda Palmer.  Having the double advantage of having a famous husband in the person of author Neil Gaiman, Palmer’s successful Kickstarter attempts have made a crowd funding evangelist out of her. The first project “An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer” was successfully funded through Kickstarter in 2011 with its original funding goal of $ 20,000 surpassed with obtained pledges amounting to $133,341. This particular project had a $ 100,000 funding goal but obtained a whopping $ 1,192,793 from 24,883 backers. Palmer experienced a backlash when she tried to have musicians collaborate with her in exchange for free beer even after the very successful Kickstarter funding drive.

There are several other project proposals made by celebrities through the Kickstarter format. Not all have been successfully funded however. Whether or not these celebrities are actually taking funding opportunities from non-celebrity project creators still remains to be seen.

It is no joke to succeed in any startup project. The work involved in it is such that it is not exactly for the faint-hearted and this is not to mention the required funding to push the project into full realization. It is a good thing that there are funding platforms now existing that could address this concern. Kickstarter is one such platform.

The platform does not only provide funding but also follow through options that will ensure better opportunities for commercial success to successfully funded and completed projects. A Kickstarter Store helps expose the final products to the public who can buy Kickstarter products of their choice. This advantage is not lost even among celebrities thus the great interest of some to participate in the crowdfunding platform to finance their own ventures.

Business-Savvy Celebrities

Whether through self-funding or external funding, there are many celebrities who have shown that they have what it takes to succeed in business as well. Star power is certainly an advantage. With the many failed celebrity-started businesses however, it is evident that it is not enough. Here are some celebrities who succeeded in their business start-up efforts:

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Venus Williams

Anyone who comes across Williams Interior Design Inc. would not have Venue Williams as the likely person behind it but she is. It would be easier to associate her with a business related to her sport or even fashionable sports wear. This just shows that there are unknown personality facets in every person which would result to decisions that are totally unexpected.

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Raquel Welch

When Raquel Welch ventured into the wig business, it just seemed natural and expected. For a woman who has capitalized on her natural beauty and hair to gain stardom, going into a business related to beauty is just but fitting.

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Paul Newman

No other celebrity has come close to establishing a food company giant like Paul Newman. Starting out with a homemade salad dressing, Newman catapulted the brand into the consumers’ consciousness. Co-founded with A.E. Hotchner, the food company and not-for-profit corporation continues to give all profits to charity even after the actor’s death.

This one proves how one simple startup idea can create vast opportunities for employment and greater things like helping other people through charity. In startup projects proposed through Kickstarter , creators are able to develop their products through financial backers. Wouldn’t it be great if some of these projects end up helping humanity as a whole? Help begets help.

Several Hollywood celebrities have been enjoying cigar-smoking for some time now when they are in their relaxation mode. While some are move visible with their cigars in public, some are not quite so. Still, almost all of them acknowledge their love for good cigar.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

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Whether it is to reprise a role in a movie or to be simply himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger has never hidden his preference for a good cigar smoke. He fits the usual image of a cigar-smoking man because of his built, his popular action movie roles, and a man who has reached a certain level of affluence. Even when he signed a law as governor that prohibits smoking in common-use areas, he purposely had a smoking tent made outside his office so he can continue chomping on his cigars with the advantage of exemption.

Jack Nicholson

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A smoker since he was a kid, Jack Nicholson tried to stop the habit when he got married in 1962. He successfully did so for about 10 years until he had to play the role of a cigar-smoking petty officer. He never stopped since he figured that the only way to stop the bad habit of cigarette smoking was to replace it with the better habit of cigar smoking. Cigar smoking is said to calm him especially when playing golf.

Sylvester Stallone

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Sylvester Stallone prefers to smoke his cigars in private thus he is rarely seen brandishing his habit in public. Having been a cigarette smoker since 12, he tried to go easy on it. A movie role that he thought would perfectly jive with cigar-smoking sort of introduced him to cigars. He quit cigarette smoking and cleared out his lungs for about three years. After which, he resumed cigar smoking “intelligently” , which is his term for connoisseur smoking.

Demi Moore

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Probably the only highly publicized pictures that can be found of Demi Moore smoking cigars are those for magazine covers or article. She however does not deny her “romance” with smaller cigars. She considers cigar smoking as a great social activity.

Jennifer Lopez

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Jennifer Lopez does not hide her smoking habit whether it is cigarettes or cigars. That is if we judge this by the number of photos available that show her smoking not because of any movie role. She has been quoted many times though to have said that she doesn’t smoke.

About the Author:

Jason Rose is a professional blogger that provides the latest news on premium tobacco products. He writes for Gotham Cigars, a leading retailer of cigars online.