Can we look forward to East-West battles fought in cyberspace?

Never mind MySpace and Facebook. Some major mainstream acts are creating their own social networks—in what is actually a savvy way to better control their digital marketing.

At first, I kind of rolled my eyes when Billboard and Reuters reported that folks as diverse as 50 Cent and the (used-to-be-cool-cabaret-act) Pussycat Dolls were creating their own social networks. Remember when mainstream entertainers (or at least their handlers) finally heard about blogging back in, like, 2005? The result for the most part was lame PR fluff that very few believed was written by the actual actor or singer in question—going against the whole point of blogging, which is to engage the audience on a personal basis. (The big exception to that was Wil Wheaton, the actor who’s become a respected geek culture writer and blogger.)

Of course, all this eventually changed and now many celebrity bloggers do seem to be writing their own posts—straight from the heart rather than the PR desk. Grammatical errors and overly-emotional rants are what give these posts that sense of personal honesty, even if they’re an old-school marketer’s nightmare.

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