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Surfing the Celeb Demimonde

If you thought Kevin Federline's branded search engine was just a flash in the digital pan, guess again. The chance to join K-Fed for his birthday bash in Las Vegas may have passed, but the company behind the site says the online party goes on.

Scott Dudelson, chief operating officer of Web media firm Prodege.com, envisions Search With Kevin as a permanent fixture of the Internet landscape. "The idea is to give out prizes every few days," he says, including T-shirts, autographed K-Fed photos and CDs, and other rewards as yet not imagined.

After starting out working with charitable causes, Prodege launched the celebrity side of the business in mid-2006. "Everybody every day is searching the web and you can raise money doing it," says Dudelson. Besides Federline, the company runs similar search-and-win sites for a collection of B-list celebrities including Meatloaf, Andrew Dice Clay and Wynona Judd. Results are powered by Ask.com.

Of course, dubious personalities like K-Fed and Andrew Dice Clay might themselves be considered charity cases - but the idea of branded search with prize incentives does have a certain appeal in the abstract. "Our sites are not one-off things," said Dudelson: "We hope that this is a new way for people to search."

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