Social Media: The Ashton Kutcher Effect

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John Legend Taps Tumblr

In addition to their promotional value, social networking celebrities represent a potential revenue source for these young startups. Tumblr recently helped musician John Legend design a professional-looking blog that matches the look of his promotional site, created by Sony Music Entertainment. Tumblr's Karp says he took that project on at no charge—in part to bring in Legend's fans but also to explore whether it makes sense to offer similar services at a cost. "For people who want the reach on our network, who want to be able to take advantage of our platform, at some point this does turn into a premium service," he says.

Ning already collects monthly fees from some of its users, many of whom are celebrities. The site is free for anyone who wants to build their own social network but charges as much as $55 a month to users who prefer to keep their pages clear of ads or who want to collect revenue generated by ads on their pages. Although the service is not exclusive to stars, many of the most successful networks on Ning draw on the fame of their operators, including hip-hop artists 50 Cent and Q-Tip, rock band Good Charlotte, and Ultimate Fighting Championship titleholder BJ Penn. "The next generation of celebrities and social networks is in much richer and deeper collaborations [with fans] than what you see today on the more general social networks out there," says Ning CEO Gina Bianchini.

Many big names in business, including Dell (DELL) CEO Michael Dell, use professional networking site LinkedIn more as a business tool than to amass legions of followers. Whatever their reasons for being on the site, LinkedIn uses the fact that executives from all of the 500 biggest companies are among its members to encourage other businesspeople to join the site, too.

Douglas MacMillan is a staff writer for BusinessWeek in New York.

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