Gossip

"Whose bum do you prefer - J-Lo's or Kylie's?"

It's apparently an important question, and crucial to the future of mobile IT. Well, if you believe that ...

The "which bum do you fancy?" question apparently arose in discussions between ordinary rock fans, and a "celebrity" - someone called Kelly, "of LibertyX."

To understand it, you don't really need to know that LibertyX was the "failed" artificial rock group from a TV pop-idol type show, and that it has gone on to do better than the outfit which won. Nor do you need to know that Kelly, like Kylie and like J-Lo, is a singer. You probably do need to know that in the "music" business, the shape of your bum is more important than your voice - but you could scarcely avoid noticing that ...

What makes it fascinating for mobile users, apparently, is that it was "the first live SMS celebrity chat."

The Hunky Mouse can recall the days when celebrity chat was an invention of Prestel, which was a minimal-technology version of the Internet which nearly became popular in the UK nearly twenty years ago. The idea is to liven up a perfectly ordinary online chatroom, by inviting someone special to join in.

Apparently, Kelly is this someone special. And she has an opinion about Kylie's bum. Hooray.

So what did the chat go on about?- apart from bums? Sample: "how do we feel? gr8!, say LibertyX"

The thrash was organised by Freever, and took place at the Brit Awards party.

Artists and celebrities chilling out at the K Bar in Chelsea after the Awards answered SMS questions sent in by thousands of fans.

Will it catch on? Of course not! - celebrities don't like being slagged off by jealous fans; and if it becomes known that you can find a genuine celebrity to chat to, people will, of course, join in order to slag them. At which point, they'll all disappear ... well, that's what happened on Prestel.

But at least you now know that no matter how daft your business plan, someone will take it seriously ...