For Internet users who have had it with rubbing elbows with the world's 99 percent on Facebook and Twitter, there is a new social network that shuts out everybody else but the 1 percent.
Anyone above 21 years old with $9,000 to spare can now leave the social networks of the bourgeoisie for Netropolitan, a new social network where only the world's most affluent Internet users can join and mingle with one another to talk about "everything from fine wines to classic cars to vacation destination recommendations." Aspiring members who wish to join the "online country club" will have to pay $6,000 for an initiation fee and a $3,000 annual membership fee.
Musician, composer and former conductor of the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra James Touchi-Peters founded Netropolitan for two reasons. One, he was not at all happy with all the advertisements he kept seeing up everywhere on the public Internet. And two, he was "looking for a community where people shared my interests."
"James and others have mentioned feeling judged for talking about certain topics on other social media outlets. Like they were bragging and met with a little ill will," says Michelle Lawless of public relations firm Media Minefield, which manages the public relations of the website. "Netropolitan is designed to be the place to talk about your last European vacation or new car without the backlash."
For $9,000, which should be nothing more than nickels and dimes for the world's upper crust, they can get basically what everyone else can get on Facebook minus the plethora of advertisements.
"Netropolitan accepts and displays no third-party advertising of any kind, and never will," says Netropolitan on its website.
Aside from that, users can create their own profiles, have access to their filthy rich friends' activities, receive notifications, send messages, tag their location, and add friends and followers. The status box on Netropolitan tells users to update their status about "where you are and what you're up to." Users also get unlimited cloud storage, which Netropolitan claims can easily replace other cloud services such as Dropbox or SkyDrive.
The social network will also be constantly monitored by moderators, all in the name of keeping activities and conversations on the bare-screened "online country club" classy and tasteful. Netropolitan, however, emphasizes that it is not a concierge service and its moderators will not "book you a charter jet, or find you tickets to a sold-out Broadway show."
As to who among the world's deepest pockets have already joined Netropolitan to engage in conversations about fine wines and private yachts, the websites says it "already had several hundred members at launch," but it will "NEVER release or verify the identity of any of our members - ever."
