Gawker: valleywag, nonsociety.com

NonSociety Becomes Even Non-er

Owen Thomas — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:46:27 EDT

The separation of microcelebrity nontrepreneur Julia Allison, the dating columnist turned egoblogger, and vapid handbag designer Mary Rambin has finally happened even though everyone has known for a month.

NonSociety, a group blog detailing Allison's, Rambin's, and Silicon Valley heiress Meghan Asha's daily misadventures, has always promised to be more than just a stream of the trio's daily trivia. "It's just the three of us... but not for long! We're bringing on other contributors," the site has promised since it launched last year. Only now, with Rambin's exit, is Allison looking seriously for more people. The site was never about the three of them, Allison now argues. Well, of course, it was never about anything at all.

Julia Allison's 500,000 imaginary monthly readers

Paul Boutin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:20:00 EDT

"My mom and Julia spent most of the time comparing their respective startups," Tumblr jockey Nick Noyes blogs about his dinner with New York's notorious nobody, Julia Allison. "Interesting statistic of the night: her site garners 500,000 visits per month." Does Nick mean Julia, or his mom?

Because Quantcast places both Julia's personal site and her startup, NonSociety, at "fewer than 2,000 U.S. monthly people." Either way, Julia wisely lets her dinner guest publish the claim, giving her plausible deniability. That's part of Julia's cover-of-Wired appeal — she doesn't need a website. (Photo by Nick Noyes.

Julia Allison just won't leave

Owen Thomas — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:55:00 EDT

"Good news! Julia is moving to Silicon Valley for the winter!" — Valleywag intern Alaska Miller, reporting live from the TechCrunch party on notorious nontrepreneur Julia Allison's plans to move to the Bay Area from New York later this year. By "good news," I assume he means the fact that we have all fall to prepare.

How Julia made Valleywag make Julia

Melissa Gira Grant — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:00:00 EDT

Snake, meet tail. The voyeuristic ouroboros that is Julia Allison's love affair with Valleywag got even more play in her coveted Wired cover story than her own startup did. Don't let us waste your time when you could be hustling us for fame; here's the 100-word version of her "secrets" to self-promotion.

Step 1, get noticed. Julia discovered a niche, positioned herself at its choke point, and stayed there until people started to notice. Gawker. A complicated symbiosis was born. Allison could cross "become a cult figure" off her to-do list. Step 2, keep them hooked. Valleywag ran photos of Allison canoodling. "I can't do this anymore. It's ruining my life," she wrote. More than 17,000 readers on her site that day, a new record. Step 3, extend your brand. Newly reinvented as a tech-world ingenue, Allison began entertaining plans to launch her own business. Signed up two friends to act as cofounders of the site — nonsociety.com. Even if her new site is good for nothing more than providing continued fodder for the cannons that are pointed at her, that will be its own kind of success.

(Photo by Platon/Wired)

Julia Allison's Wired cover — yes, it's real

Melissa Gira Grant — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:00:00 EDT

We knew you'd ask. So I called Wired executive editor Bob Cohn: He confirmed. August 2008, undeserving Internet fame recipient Julia Allison hits the newsstands, becoming an undeserving print fame recipient. Now the prematurely dysfunctional launch of her blog collective, NonSociety, makes some sense; she rushed the site out to meet Wired's print deadline. How did we not see this coming? Oh, wait: We did.

Julia Allison: HTML tutor to the nonstars

Melissa Gira Grant — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:20:00 EDT

It's been just a little over a year since Julia Allison touched down in Silicon Valley, strutting past the hand-stampers at an arts fundraiser and informing anyone who would listen that she was looking for a boyfriend to help her with her website. It hasn't exactly paid off. The so-soft-it-hurts launch of her new startup, Nonsociety.com, is a technical tour de farce. The rumored-to-death project wraps glamour shots of Allison and friends like comrade Meghan Asha Parikh, TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington's ex-girlfriend, around sideways-scrolling feeds ("lifestreams"!) of their Tumblr blogs. Meghan, a former hedge-fund analyst, shows off her tech creds here. She's the only one who seems to have a functioning "lifestream," even on launch day. Allison's and a handbag-designing ladyfriend's came up 404. We salvaged the launch video, in case the whole thing collapses:

Allison's quest for a geek boyfriend paid off in two regards. Nonsociety's design is strongly reminiscent of Iminlikewithyou, the casual-games site run by her current beau, Charles Forman, and the teaser video is hosted at Vimeo, the online-video site founded by Jakob Lodwick, Allison's ex. Too bad she didn't hook up with a boy more experienced at handling back ends.