Social network for the rich launched, US$9,000 entry

18 Sep 2014

A new social network called Netropolitan aiming to cater to the wealthy has been launched, with a membership fee of US$9,000.

For the rich and famous out there, the boundaries they can establish between themselves and the ‘regular folk’ simply cannot exist in its current form online.

This can be seen with any celebrity on Twitter or Facebook, who are just as capable of receiving a message as anyone else, but now this has changed, according to Engadget.

Judging from its website, Netropolitan does not shy away from the fact this site is for those who don’t even know the meaning of ‘money issues’, stating it is ‘the online country club for people with more money than time’.

The site claims the users’ profiles are completely inaccessible from the ‘public internet’ and will not show up on any search engine, with all member posts given a further layer of encryption.

Also, there will be no advertising on the site, except in unique cases, considering users would have paid US$9,000 to be part of Netropolitan.

The site’s founder is James Touchi-Peters, a former conductor of the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra. In an interview with CNN, he said that he wanted an “environment where you could talk about the finer things in life without backlash”.

This is not the first case of promoting the idea of exclusivity online. Chris Baker, designer of the app unbaby.me, created ‘The World’s Most Exclusive Website’, which requires a verified Twitter account to have a minimum number of followers in order to enter through each stage of the site.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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