Want to network with rapper 50 Cent? How about befriending Kylie Minogue? Or Ludacris, or the Pussycat Dolls, for that matter? If so, perhaps you should look elsewhere than, say, MySpace, the default service for most things musical on the social Web. The alternative destination to hit? Well, actually, there is more than one place that you will be able to go to to connect with some well-known artists. Musicians are looking to go from the mass complex that is MySpace to locations a little more personal. Some are putting together their own sites meant to connect with a fan base devoted exclusively to them and their projects. Case in point: Thisis50.com.
Jennifer Netherby of Billboard recently shed some light on the site. What it amounts to is a personal network for the rapper 50 Cent. It is a microcosmic social media hub, in short. Video clips abound, and there’s plenty of information about the artist as well as ways to connect with fellow fans. 
No need to visit MySpace to follow the man’s tours or his moments between recordings and live events and things. Thisis50 will give you everything you might want or need. It is a reality that certainly pleases the site’s management. Chris Romero, director of new media for G-Unit Records, says that the level of control available to administrators of the network goes above and beyond what MySpace avails to users, claiming “we control the e-mail database.” It is worth mentioning that Ning, a company that specializes in providing customization-friendly networking tools, supplies Thisis50 with various services. The same goes for other artists as well, including Sara Bareilles, an individual who grew quite popular in recent months through promotions online.
What these changes to the musical framework of the social Web prelude, however, may well be a small trickle of a few names that grows quickly into an exodus of famous faces and voices intent on establishing more solitary existences on the Web. And if a trend to more individualized services among artists ensues, then we could in a couple of years potentially have a vast disarray of networks in our midst. Which, as many millions of social networkers today would probably determine, isn’t a prognosis many would find appealing. Convenience and efficiency would fall dramatically, and many Web users would essentially be forced to reckon with a potpourri of services, whereas they would previously manage an average of only one or two. Unless, of course, efforts like OpenSocial evolve quickly enough to service such isolated connections with seamless delight. But I personally would not bank on such matches being made. So I say with caution that stories like Thisis50, while ideally interesting, aren’t good news for the social Web in general.
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