FAQs

Most celebrity websites try to tell you who’s important. Here, you tell us.

Our members (that's YOU) text us your celebrity sighting stories. You decide who's remarkable, who's worth watching, and who's not. Set your alert preferences and we’ll text you or direct message you on Twitter when other members spot celebrities you want to know about.

You mean the pigeons? The pigeon is a New York icon. Here are three things you probably didn’t know about this extraordinary animal:

1. 1) Cher Ami, a U.S. Army homing pigeon during WWI, was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for delivering twelve important messages on the battlefields of Verdun, France. On his last mission, he was shot through the breast by enemy fire, but successfully delivered a message credited with saving 200 American lives.
2. In Belgium, Paul Julius Reuters, founder of the eponymous newswire service, first transmitted news and stock prices by pigeon between Brussels and Germany.
3. In the 1970s, the Coast Guard experimented with pigeon-led search and rescue missions from helicopters because pigeons could identify floating objects with a vastly superior success rate to humans.

You need a computer, but you're already here, so let's skip that.

You’re going to want to stay connected while you’re away from the computer, so you need a mobile phone that can receive texts or Twitter DMs. Chances are you have one.

An interest in celebrities or what's going on right now in New York and LA doesn't hurt either. Looks like you've basically got it all.

Now you're talking! Instead of texting your BFF, text 60270 and tell OMGICU who you saw, where you saw him/her, and any other details (in 120 characters or less). Remember, the details make the story.

Make sure to store 60270 in your phone --- you want it there when you need it.

While you might spend a lot of time in Peoria, celebrities do not. And no, Ric Kearbey, Chief Meteorologist from WHOI’s Storm Team 19 doesn’t count.

60270 is OMGICU’s short code. Think of it as our phone number, just shorter. Text it like you would any regular phone number and we’ll get it.

We need your phone number to text you with celebrity sighting alerts (obviously). But we won’t sell it, give it away, write it on a bathroom wall or do anything else with it that should make you feel uneasy.

Text STOP to 60270 to opt out of alerts. But please reconsider : (

Message and data rates from your carrier apply, but there are no additional charges from OMGICU. We would encourage you to upgrade your text message plan, but you probably text a lot already, right?

What were you thinking?

You know how sometimes you wonder what Arsenio is doing right now? Wonder no more!

When you follow someone, we’ll alert you whenever that person is seen, regardless of where it is. Just make sure you’ve set your alerts to receive either texts or DMs on Twitter from OMGICU.

These are recent sightings that we really like. So we put you on the homepage. The details make the story. Here’s an example.

"Mischa Barton is sweating away her coke bloat at Equinox Soho.” (August 5)

A lot of websites want you to believe that every celebrity leaving a yoga studio is big news. That’s because they didn’t see Dr. Phil riding Amtrak from Philly to New York and can’t tell you that “homeboy wears a lot of makeup” (September 9).

Tell OMGICU what you care about and what you don’t. We’ll tell you what all the other members think.

The Pecking Order is the official hierarchy of celebrities’ popularity in your eyes, which are really the only eyes that matter. It’s recalculated all the time and it’s not necessarily representative of what other celebrity sites are telling you.

For instance, we’ve got quantitative evidence that Steve Buscemi is more popular than Robert Pattinson. Way more popular. You want to argue with math?

It’s simple. We dynamically calculate composite scores for all celebrities based on members’ following behavior and if they care or don’t care about specific sightings. Feel free to play around and make suggestions.

Fs = 1/log(Ft+2) x Fw x Fv
Rs = 1/log(Rt+2) x Rw x Rv

In which:
Ft = Time since following started (in days)
Rt = Age in days of a sighting
Fw = Weight assigned to following
Rw = Weight assigned to caring
Fv = Following value
Rv = Sighting care value (1 or -1)
Fs = Following score
Rs = Rating score

Would nerds be able to pull off the sunglasses emoticon?

Subject Matter Experts are members who have earned expert status on specific celebrities. They’re the authorities who are following specific people and weigh in every time that celebrity is seen on OMGICU. The only way to become a Subject Matter Expert is to participate, actively, accurately and consistently.

They’re just some gossipy birds. Possibly the gossipiest since the pigeons in "It’s Perfectly True," the Hans Christian Andersen classic.

They’re around to help though. Take their advice about how to use OMGICU.

In New York and LA, you see awesome street art stickers everywhere.

On OMGICU, you earn stickers when you participate. We put them on your profile. The world basks in your accomplishments.

Soon. Won’t that be awesome? For now, if you have something you want to share, send it @ our Twitter account, @OMGICU.

Weird. Email us and we’ll look into it. support@omgicu.com

Ready to take credit for all your sightings? Great. We’ll add your sightings to your OMGICU profile. You can find them at omgicu.com/yourmembername.

Nope, we only accept celebrity sightings through text messages.

Here’s what Twitter has to say about them.

Great. Now, get going on OMGICU and “Sey-mour” of everyone…