Before establishing his own studio, Yang worked for another cyber world promoter, Yang Jun, the driving force behind cyber star "Tian Xian Mei Mei" or "Fairy Girl".

The "Fairy Girl", from the Qiang ethnic group, allegedly lived in a remote village in Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

She was promoted as a pure beauty, who had never known the outside world. In reality, she had been a professional dancer in a local ensemble.

After becoming famous, she was chosen by Sony Ericsson to promote its new mobile phone models.

Being no longer able to get on with his former boss, Yang Xiuyu left and set up his own studio last year.

In an era of grassroots entertainment, he looks for attractive cyberspace projects that everybody can take part in, such as the "paperclip for house event".

"These events entertain people and give companies an opportunity to promote their products, and often a cyber star can be created as a by-product," Yang said.

According to official statistics, China had 137 million Internet users by the end of 2006 and the country's online population will hit 200 million by 2010.

The cyber world has become a crucial space for enterprises to promote their products and also for gold diggers, such as Ai Qingqing or the "Fairy Girl".

If the Internet events become big enough, they inevitably attract coverage from traditional media.

Jin Lingyun, a senior editor with the Beijing Times, which covered the "paperclip for house event" along with many other media, including China Central Television (CCTV) and Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television, said Internet surfing had become an integral part of journalism.

"But when we choose news from the Internet, our rules state that the event must really have happened and the identities of the main figures should be clear," Jin said.

He initially doubted the authenticity of the "paperclip for house event", but many other media had already started to run stories about it.

"If we hadn't reported it while our competitors were doing so, we would have lost readers," Jin said.

In the end, the media competed with each other to establish Ai's fame and later discovered they had been hoodwinked.

"What happened is going to harm our newspaper's reputation even if, in the end, we did help readers realize that the whole thing was a con," Jin said.

Jin said when he and his colleagues reviewed the episode, they realized they failed to follow their own rules.

"We did not clarify the identities of the people who exchanged things with the girl," Jin said.

He said that time pressures made it difficult for his news team to check people one by one.

Chen Changfeng, a professor with the Peking University School of Journalism and Communication, said the episode revealed fierce market competition.

"The media need advertising revenue and to attract advertisers they must have sufficient readers which means they are always on the lookout for eye-catching news. Cyber promoters capitalize on this," she said.

She said earlier cyber stars, such as "Sister Lotus", the lip synching boys and "Little Fatty", some of whom achieved world fame, were all boosted by different teams of cyber promoters.

"Behind the cyber stars are clever hands able to manipulate the market, lure common people with dreams of fame, tempt advertisers into promoting their clients and seduce the media into gullibility," Chen said.

She said the media should establish general rules of self-discipline and stick to professional journalism.

Jin Lingyun believes all the traditional media will be much more careful in the future in dealing with Internet news.

But Yang Xiuyu was unrepentant. He said he would continue to target the Internet market. "The traditional media will get trapped again," he grinned.

"You know, anyone can become a promoter and create a story on the Internet," he said.

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