By Matthew Moore
Published: 7:21AM GMT 04 Feb 2010
Forbes magazine’s fourth annual web celebrity ranking praised Hilton – real name Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr – for his “off-colour blend of humour, opinion and immature humour”.
It noted that his celebrity had begun to spill over into the non-virtual world, following a fracas last year in which he was allegedly assaulted by a manager of the band Black Eyed Peas.
Second place in the list was taken by Michael Arrington, the founder and editor of technology news blog TechCrunch, which Forbes described as “a go-to news source for the tech-business cognoscenti”.
Winning Arrington’s approval is crucial to the success of any Silicon Valley start-up, and he has even attempted to branch out into technology hardware with the CrunchPad e-reader, which has yet to see the light of day.
Pete Cashmore, the 24-year-old Scottish-born founder of the Mashable blog was in third place, just ahead of Evan Williams and Biz Stone who set-up Twitter in 2006. Forbes noted that last year the micro-blogging website “went from tech-industry obsession to national phenomenon”.
Other influential figures making the top 25 include Kevin Rose, the founder of the social bookmarking website Digg, Robert Scoble, the technology blogger, and Matt Drudge, whose Drudge Report website is required daily readers for millions of right-wing Americans.
This is the fourth web celebrity list compiled by Forbes magazine. Hilton also came out top in 2009 and 2008, while YouTube star Lonelygirl15, real name Jessica Lee Rose, took the crown in 2007.
Full list
4. Evan Williams & Biz Stone
7. Heather “Dooce” Armstrong
8. Tila “Tequila” Nguyen