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A celebrity stalker mashup

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.
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Elinor Mills

Want to know which sexy celebrity was eating at that trendy new cafe in uptown New York this week? How about which too-thin model barked at her personal assistant in public for no apparent reason? The answer to these and life's other important questions can be found at Gawker Stalker.

The site has first-person accounts of celebrity sightings, complete with the where and the when, alongside an interactive Google map of Manhattan. Using hybrid software that combines content from more than one source, the site, or mashup, has the exact locations of the sightings and balloons with more data.

Popular blog network Gawker hired two interns to update the map daily, with information supplied by tipsters, according to an Associated Press article.

My favorite tidbit is from Tuesday at 4 p.m.: "Saw Dolly Parton with a young man at Starbucks--Spring and Varrick. She was gracious while she politely signed autographs and posed for pictures. She said, 'Let Timmy in here (a guy she was with)--he's more of a country queen than I am!'"