Oakland Raiders defensive tackle Warren Sapp was fined $75,000 yesterday by the NFL for his confrontation with game officials that led to his ejection last week.

Sapp avoided a suspension, however.

The league said Sapp was punished for “physical and verbal actions toward game officials that drew an unprecedented three unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and ejection from last Sunday’s game.”

Defensive end Derrick Burgess was also fined $25,000 for verbally abusing an official during the same sequence.

The punishments were announced after the Raiders’ media availability yesterday in Alameda, Calif., so neither player nor Coach Lane Kiffin was available to comment. Both Sapp and Kiffin said previously they were not worried about a possible suspension.

The altercation came late in the first half of a 49-11 loss at Jacksonville, when the Raiders were called for four unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in one sequence. The dispute began when Jaguars right tackle Tony Pashos was flagged for illegal use of his hands to the face.

More fantastic news for Jessica Alba.

The 26-year-old actress is engaged to boyfriend Cash Warren, her publicist Brad Cafarelli confirmed to E! News Thursday.

No other details were forthcoming about the how, where or when, but Alba has been photographed sporting a hefty rock on her left ring finger and the parents-to-be are definitely on the road to matrimony.

The couple announced earlier this month that they are expecting their first child together in late spring or early summer.

Alba and Warren, 28, have been an item since meeting on the set of The Fantastic Four in 2004, where the son of Hill Street Blues star Michael Warren was working as a director’s assistant and the actress was working as an invisible wielder of force fields.

The former Dark Angel star, who most recently played opposite Dane Cook in Good Luck Chuck and screamed alongside Hayden Christensen in the anesthesia-gone-wrong thriller Awake, is up next in the U.S. remake of the Japanese horror flick The Eye, in theaters Feb. 1.

MONTREAL — Silicon Valley wisdom holds that a great tech company starts small — by tradition in a garage — and slowly grows as it proves itself.

Google started that way. So did Apple and the social-network darling Facebook. So are thousands of startups worldwide that want to make their fortunes on the Internet.

But what if one starts big from the get-go? What if an entrepreneur commands millions of dollars and throws it all into a company with a hundred employees, rooms full of computers, and very few

Is this a reckless return to the dot-com bubble days? Or is it a bold charge at Internet notoriety?

Capazoo is a new Montreal-based social network that fancies itself the next stage in the evolution of social networking, and it’s betting on the latter. It wants to unseat MySpace and Facebook as the reigning champs of online socializing.

And it has $25 million from pro-athlete investors and a well-known entertainment brand behind it. Its rationale: Social networks are nothing without their users.

It’s individuals who add the funny pictures, videos and blog ramblings that make other users stick around. So shouldn’t users be compensated for the popularity of their content?

To this end, Capazoo’s model offers two significant twists: Users who post popular content can profit from their contribution — but only if they pay a yearly fee.

“There’s this growing backlash that sees corporations making money on the backs of content producers,” said Robert Samuels, general manager of Capazoo, taking a swipe at YouTube and its cohorts that are capitalizing on user-generated media. “People are basically saying: ‘I want to be appreciated, not taken advantage of.’ ”

On the surface, little sets Capazoo apart from others. Users create profiles, share pictures, videos and music, and keep personal blogs.

Its grand idea is to foster a micro-economy in which users “tip” each another with a fictional currency called the Zoop. New users are given an allowance of Zoops they can give away at will. They can then buy more Zoops at a penny each.

This, founders claim, will encourage users to post interesting content that others will want to tip. Good content will attract more users. Professionals will want to promote their videos and music there.

That’s the theory.

Capazoo gives users the option to convert their accumulated Zoops into real cash. But to do that, you have to be a paying member, at $25 to $35 a year, depending on the package.

These VIP members receive a debit card carrying their Zoop balance, which they can use at most bank machines.

This melding of virtual and physical worlds will be Capazoo’s greatest test.

If its big bet succeeds, Capazoo will surprise a lot of skeptical observers in the tech world.

“Starting small is definitely the way you start these days, especially if you don’t have an edge in the marketplace,” said Barry Parr, an analyst with Jupiter Research.

“I’m not saying it’s impossible to beat these guys [MySpace and Facebook], but there are few historical precedents to show it can be done. Once a leader is established, it’s very hard if not impossible to do it.”

Samuels dismisses the criticism.

“We’re not your average startup,” he said. “Our growth plan is significant, we have to have the infrastructure.”

Capazoo’s spending spree includes $5 million for Web hosting services, an amount deemed absurd by startup standards. “In a few years, someone else will come up behind us, so we have to prepare for that, too,” Samuels explains

To its critics, Capazoo’s biggest red flag is that it’s funded almost entirely by private individuals. The company’s co-founder and president is Grant Carter, a former defensive end for the Alouettes who married a CBC reporter and moved to a suburb of Atlanta to become a banker.

Major investors include NFL, NHL and NBA personalities.

National Lampoon, the satirical magazine popular among the college set, last week took a minor stake in the firm.

Blogging might be a leisure activity for many famous personalities but it has brought fame to people like India-born Om Malik who has been named as one of the global web celebrities by American magazine Forbes.

Ranked at the 12th position for technology blogging on the list of “Web Celeb 25″, he shares the limelight not just with fellow bloggers but also with video hosts and gadget gurus.

A chemistry graduate from St. Stephen’s College in India’s capital New Delhi, Malik is the brain behind the website ‘gigaom.com’ and has also served as a technology journalist for various publications.

“Om Malik has a long history as a tech journalist, writing for outlets including Business 2.0, Red Herring and The Wall Street Journal (he was also one of the founding staffers of Forbes.com). But true web celebrity status didn’t come for the Indian-born writer until 2001, when he started his own technology blog, GigaOm,” Forbes said.

On the other hand, twenty nine-year-old Perez Hilton alias Mario Lavandeira, who runs the website ‘perezhilton.com’, is at the top of the heap.

“Hollywood stars fear the wrath of Perez Hilton, a controversial gossip blogger with a poison pen… His blog is hugely popular, despite recent missteps, including erroneously reporting the death of Fidel Castro,” the magazine said.

Pointing out that Malik frequently appears in the media on television as a technology expert, Forbes added that his popular website has received funding from sources including San Francisco-based venture firm True Ventures.

Meanwhile, according to forty one-year-old Malik’s website, he has also been a venture capitalist for a brief period.

“… Few months in the VC (venture capitalism) business made me realise how much I missed the world of writing and reportage, and I went to work for Red Herring where (at least I thought) I could apply my extensive knowledge and insight into the world of venture capitalism and cutting-edge technologies,” Malik said on his website.

Interestingly, one of the web celebrities is Dan Lyons - none other than the editor of Forbes itself. However, he is ranked at the 17th position in the name ‘Fake Steve Jobs’ (fakesteve.blogspot.com).

Dan Lyons started a pseudonymous blog, posing as the alter ego of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “For a year, the satirical site attracted fans, growing in popularity - and the tech and media worlds boiled over trying to figure out who was behind it.”

In August 2007, The New York Times outed Lyons as the author; in October, he released a book, Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody, under the pseudonym “Fake Steve Jobs.” the report said about its own editor.

Other names on the Forbes list include Michael Arrington (2nd rank), Mark Frauenfelder (3rd), Seth Godin (4th), Cory Doctorow (5th), Matt Drudge (6th), Gina Trapani (7th), Mark Zuckerberg (8th), Harry Knowles (9th), Robert Scoble (10th), Frank Warren (11th), Will Leitch (13th), Jeff Jarvis (14th), Kevin Rose (15th), Kathy Sierra (16th), Markos Moulitsas (18th), Xeni Jardin (19th), Ryan Block (20th), Glenn Reynolds (21st), Pete Cashmore (22nd), Steve Rubel (23rd), Heather Armstrong (24th) and Darren Rowse (25th).

The magazine collected data on 200 internet personalities and ranked their popularity. “The final list of 25 names shows how the web has levelled the playing field - so that now, even the unlikeliest character can become a star,” Forbes said in an accompanying report.

It hasn’t been a good holiday season for former American Idol contestant Jessica Sierra.  She was arrested on the second of December outside of a bar for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and public intoxication.  This arrest came just a couple of weeks after facing charges of battery and possession of cocaine.  Sierra was set to appear in front of a judge last week, and if convicted of all charges, could face up to eleven years in prison.  Now, TMZ is reporting that Jessica Sierra is pregnant, and that the father is a rap artist.  She has been in jail throughout the holiday season.

Her cocaine and battery arrest came from an incident last April, when Sierra hit a man in the head with a bar glass at a Tampa Bay night club.  As part of her punishment, Sierra completed a drug rehab program that was filmed for the upcoming reality series Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.  This pregnancy report is based on information from jail that she is on a pregnancy diet.  It seems legitimate.

I’m not sure if most people really remember Jessica Sierra from her time on American Idol, and it’s sad to think that maybe her brush with fame and subsequent face plant back into anonymity may have caused some of these personal issues.  Perhaps she was a messed up girl to begin with, and these problems with the law were inevitable, but I have to believe that American Idol had something to do with it one way or another.  I wonder how VH-1 is going to handle her appearance on the Celebrity Rehab show, now that they know the program wasn’t successful for her.  Usually those types of series are about redemption and renewed hope.  They can’t pretend that the program has cured Sierra, can they?