The release of Grand Theft Auto IV has brought a lot of attention to the gaming industry and the women who dominate it. Around the world, the number of women gamers online is starting to overtake the number of men. A report by Gamesdog outlines the statistics.

Morgan Webb is a geek who built a sustainable career in gaming. She launched Webb Alert in August 2007 and interacts with her fans and audience on MySpace.

Becky “Aktrez” Young is a pro gamer who has built a big brand around her activity on social networks. She does live broadcasts with her friends on Justin.tv. She is a recurring guest on G4’s The Loop and creator of the Girls Entertainment Network.

One up and coming gamer girl to keep an eye on is Katharine Fletcher. She’s a video blogger from London who can be found on the Channel Flip Network. Fletcher’s the host of Play:Digital.

Photograph credits:
Marmot Chaser
Ian Muttoo

*You see Link in the video, not Zelda.

I sat down with YouTube fame, Caitlin Hill. She is an actress, dancer, video blogger, blogger and is looking to get more involved with live video. I asked Caitlin to explain some of her greatest challenges. She says:

“The challenges that one faces when they are a video blogger is remaining true to themselves. There is so much criticism and when you are also editing yourself you get to see a side of you that you have never seen, and you become highly critical of yourself. You also start to change yourself to fit what the audience likes OR you change yourself to go against what the audience likes. It can shatter confidence and increase self-doubt.

The hardest thing I face now, is just getting back to basics and also just getting off my butt and making the videos I’ve been dreaming about for years. That’s the problem, I’m too lazy. Another thing that is hard is keeping up with it all. The Internet is 24/7, as we all know, and as soon as you close your eyes, your whole digital world can change. It’s not a very stable environment to grow up in ; )”

Veronica Belmont has leveraged her internet fame off a variety of different platforms. She has networked her way to the top and is one to look out for. Currently she is co-hosting Tekzilla.

I asked Veronica how she did it. She says, “I think the most important thing is to cross-promote between networks. I obviously use different networks for different reasons, and so attracting people from one place (like Twitter) to another (like Flickr or Facebook) is relatively easy if you have good content to show them.”

Mahalo Daily is on the search for new talent. The original host Veronica Belmont recently left for other opportunities so the CEO Jason Calacanis created an American Idol-like contest.

Calacanis has enlisted other judges to help such as, Alex Albrecht, who co-hosts Diggnation. The videos can be found on the Mahalo YouTube account. I’ll be keeping my eye on the outcome of Mahalo Vlog Idol.

Chuck Norris is so popular online that the crowds voted for Ian Spector to tailor his site toward facts about Chuck Norris. I sat down with Ian at ROFLCon last week to see exactly how it all got started. Chuck Norris’ fame may be what is so compelling about Ian’s site at the moment, however, Vin Diesel was the first personality to dominate the fact meme.

Credits:
Photo by Alex Polvi
Vin Diesel trailer
Something Awful
Chuck Norris in Action
Gym exercise by Chuck Norris

LOLCat Bible is a wiki that allows anyone collaborate to translate the bible into LOLCat talk. The Bible has not been translated, though many collaborate to get there, in it’s entirety. Martin monitors the web site to make sure there are non inappropriate images posted to the wiki. One would imagine that the LOLCat Bible would not be a sufficient source to learn about the scripture, however, many are fulfilled in visiting the site by a cultural phenomenon that is worth checking out.

Kyle Macdonald is one of the most recognized internet celebrities in the world. He put an ad on Craigslist with a dream of trading one red paperclip for something bigger and better. First he traded for a fish pen, then he traded his fish pen for a doorknob, the doorknob for a camping stove…all the way up to a house. Now he’s published a book on how he did it in only 14 trades. Also help Kyle find out who these guys are at who are these guys dot com.

At ROFLCon I sat down with MC Frontalot of Nerdcore for an interview. He has inspired many people to start rapping about the nerdy things they do. You can follow news about upcoming performances and his latest works over at his blog.

On the streets of SoHo, I asked people to tell me about their experiences watching internet videos. One guy told me about the Max Mosley scandal video that came out as a result of YouTube. Clearly, citizen journalism is shaping what people watch.

People go to the internet to watch fiction, comedy, entertainment and news. Jamison Tilsner and Josh Cohen curate, catalog and critique online shows on their website, Tilzy.tv They also blog about new developments in the developing online video industry. I sat down with Jamison and Josh in Washington Square Park to discuss the shows they are watching now. They recommend ViralCom and Cspot.

Caroline Waxler is the author of Stocking up on Sin and the managing editor of MainStreet, a blog about how celebrities spend their money.