Lady Gaga puts money on the web.
Famous on social media, the artist is involved in creating a new virtual environment, in partnership with Google, focused on specific interests such as music and sports.
247 – Lady Gaga is a machine. The millionaire and hugely famous American singer simply doesn't stop releasing work, ideas, and of course, news about herself. Announced by Forbes magazine as the most powerful celebrity in the world, her hottest news is proof of the importance she places on social media, strong allies in promoting her career – she was the first artist to reach 10 million followers on Twitter. The singer will create a new virtual environment called Backplane, conceived by her manager, Troy Carter, in partnership with the chairman of Google's board of directors, Eric Schmidt. According to The New York Times, the new social network has already raised over US$1 million in investments, led by Schmidt's Tomorrow Ventures, with Lady Gaga holding a 20% stake and acting as an informal advisor to the company.
The goal of Backpane is to strengthen communities of specific interests, such as musicians and sports teams, as well as integrate content from Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. The idea arose from a meeting between Lady Gaga's manager and Steve Jobs at Apple headquarters in California, when Carter wanted to know more about the music social network Ping, launched by the company last September. After the conversation, Carter invited a friend, Matthew Michelsen, an investor and technology professional, to find an entertainment platform that would facilitate communication with the artist's fans across all social networks. "I said: why try to find a platform? Let's try to build one," Michelsen said, according to the NYT.
Instead of investing in large and already popular platforms like YouTube, as celebrity managers do, Carter decided to develop new technological tools in a new virtual environment. Nothing could be more fair and functional to keep the Lady Gaga machine running.