Cyber Centerfold
Alley entrepreneurs on display

Left to right: Grace Chang, creative director, and Benjamin Sun, president and CEO, Corn-inunity Connect; Candace Purdie, marketing manager, Alexis Garrett Stodghill, senior prod-uct producer, and Omar Wasow, executive director, BlackPlanet.com.

From Senate candidates to heroin addicts, America loves making people into celebrities. Entrepreneurs are no exception to this rule, as illustrated by a recent slates clothing ad cam-paign (published in Details magazine) featuring the folks at Alley-based Community Connect and its ethnic online communities, AsianAvenue.com and BlackPlanet.com. According to BlackPlanet.com's Omar Wasow, slates originally approached him with the campaign a year ago, but then passed on the idea. This year, say's Wasow, things have changed: "Entrepreneurs clearly have a new hallowed role in American society. I remember a good friend and mentor of mine talking about how lucky I was to graduate from col-lege at a time when starting a company was celebrated as opposed to seriously uncool. In short, computers have made capitalism cool!" People.com, which recently named Wasow as its "Sexiest Internet Exec," seems to agree. Watch out, Hollywood.