TreyCruz.com says TTYN. Queer North Texan collegians launch celeb-goss site PopWired.com
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| IT’S ALL ABOUT THE WASHINGTONS: PopWired’s Trey Nanthavongsa, left, flashes the big bucks while writer Miguel Gallardo fires up the laptop. DANIEL A. KUSNER/Dallas Voice |
On Monday, the blog TreyCruz.com died. After two years, its creator, 22-year-old Trey Nanthavongsa felt it was time to re-brand.
Why?
The TreyCruz name was a mashup — his first name plus his boyfriend’s last name. But if you bookmarked TreyCruz, you’ll automatically be directed to PopWired.com, a cornucopia of celebrity obsession: LiLo bashing, stud-muffin portfolios from Switzerland’s Display magazine, and a post about Miley Cyrus’ disinterest in another "Hanna Montana" movie.
Apparently PopWired will be more than just a name change: Nanthavongsa says he’s ditching posts about personal life. Instead, he wants to include more Dallas stuff. And the gay-focused slant will try to appeal to the ladies.
"For the few lesbian readers we have, and the random chicks who happen to fall onto our site after searching for nude pics of Zac Efron." he says.
Nanthavongsa studies Web communications at the University of Texas at Arlington. But he doesn’t operate PopWired alone. His co-editor is Miguel Gallardo, a 19-year-old Brookhaven College student.
It’s hard to tag PopWired as a vanity project — especially with advertising clients like PriceQuotes.com, Vonage and Vacations
ToGo.com. While PopWired looks like it’s aiming for the under-25 demographic, the online media kit says its readers have college degrees and "earn an income of well over $100,000."
But Nanthavongsa says he’s still getting acquainted with who visits his site.
"Some of my readers can be a little sick. For example, the most recent story on the murder of that newsman — one of the commenters thought the dude who committed the murder was kind of hot," he says. "And I recently learned from another commenter, [that] men with shaved bodies are just ‘pretty boys.’ Not studs."
How’s business?
In 2007, Nanthavongsa got pumped when he was getting 100 hits per month.
"And that probably included me logging in to update the site," he says. "In 2008, the site averaged about 86,928 unique visitors with 197,912 page views per month. "
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition April 3, 2009.
I love them!