50 Cent has a social network

50 Cent has more than 1 million friends on MySpace and decided to start his own social network Thisis50.com.

Thisis50.com is build on the Ning platform, the website isn't meant to be a fan club, but rather a platform for 50 Cent to showcase his music and the music he likes, and comment on news and user profile pages. Thisis50.com users can create profiles and friend lists, but 50 Cent has direct access to the site's users and their e-mail addresses.

Chris "Broadway" Romero said "The thing that separates Thisis50 from MySpace is we control the e-mail database. We can e-mail members if we want to."

Kylie Minogue, Ludacris and Pussycat Dolls have launched their own social networks. Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning said that artist use MySpace and Facebook as funnels for their social networks.

And it's relatively inexpensive to create a social network if artists use one of the companies that provide the tools and hosting. Artists also tend to pay for labor to run the sites, but if fans get involved and add things to the site to share with others, it can reduce the need for staff to constantly provide new content.