Good grief. I really wonder about the sanity of the rich. A lot.
OK, first off, anyone can set up a social network. It’s called a mailing list or a private blog. You can have total control over who is on it or not. I have a few of them myself.
Second, WHY WOULD YOU PAY FOR THIS THING? It’s stupid – you can do it for free lots of places on the Internet.
Third, the rich are rich because they have more money – that’s all. There’s nothing about them that makes them smarter, more interesting, or more fun to talk to. In fact most of the ones I know are pretty damn boring people.
Why you would want to be part of this thing is just beyond me. I suppose I simply will never have that kind of ego.
But then, people not wanting to talk to me is probably the one thing that most pisses me off in the entire world. I know how horrible it feels when someone cuts you off and won’t talk to you. Believe me. I can’t imagine that I would ever cut off someone I know. Abusive lurkers on the blog who won’t tell me their real names, and spamming morons, sure – but I wouldn’t cut off someone simply for not having money.
Ever.
The Gated Social Network – Bits – Technology – New York Times Blog
“I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member,” Groucho Marx famously said. He would have loved the Web’s newest social networks.
Sites like MySpace and Facebook are designed to attract a broad base of users. A newer breed, like ModelsHotel.com and the forthcoming Diamond Lounge, are building business plans based on exclusivity and the age-old custom of keeping out the riff-raff.
Diamond Lounge is in beta testing now and will launch more broadly in October, aimed at celebrities and the affluent. An independent committee that approves members has accepted only 5 percent of about 5000 applicants, Mr. Marafie said. The company will ultimately charge members around $60 a month (can’t they afford more?) and forgo advertising.
At the end of our conversation, I tremulously asked Mr. Marafie if I would qualify for his exclusive new online club. After reviewing my qualifications, he generously said that I probably would, depending on what I could bring to the community. When I told him I would most likely bring nothing to the community, he changed his mind and said that I would be excluded.
“We are trying not to be elitist but we recognize the way things are on the Net, there’s a need to have an element of a gated system in place,” Mr. Marafie said in conclusion. “Once you have the wrong people on these social networks, the whole thing is over.”
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