Everyone loves a perfect celebrity pairing. Even better, everyone loves when two perfect celebrity couples are best friends with each other. That’s exactly how lovebirds Beyonce and Jay-Z are with actor/singer combo Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay front-man Chris Martin. Not only did Jay-Z and Martin throw an awesome 2012 New Year’s Eve concert at the Brooklyn arena, but they are constantly seen musing together, whether it’s at A-list events or quiet double dinner dates. The only thing is, two best girlfriends can sometimes get into some drama.
Image via Google (News - Alert)
To give you a quick back story on this debacle, Paltrow is the founder of GOOP, a personal website that acts as a lifestyle blog where she temporarily transforms from a fashionable red carpet goddess into a simple mother. The site offers a variety of things, including Christmas gift ideas, recipes and parenting tips. The site has been up for a few years, but now, her best pal has created a blog that seems pretty similar. So similar, in fact, that Lucky Magazine brought it to light yesterday to compare the two.
Beyonce’s new “Beyhive Blog,” which lives on the songstress’ official website, shares all of her most personal aspects with fans – from favorite foods to brands to personal photos uploaded in real-time. Of course, this is huge for her adoring fans, but one can’t help but wonder if these two sites will rival each other.
“Admittedly, there are plenty of similarities: both pages offer careful selection of product endorsements, culture-driven recommendations and encourage a conversation about it all. Some of the suggestions even overlap in taste,” Lucky Mag contributor Alison Syrett Cleary divulged.
But what’s most interesting about this seemingly friendly Web competition is that it brings to light another very important topic – the Web taking advantage of its users.
One need only remember the Instagram mess created when its owner, Facebook (News - Alert), revealed plans to monetize the site last year. Last month, it was widely reported that Instagram’s new Facebook privacy policy would take effect January 16 of this year, which would enable it to sell its users information and data for profit.
Instagram stated that any “business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.” Clearly, this didn’t go over well with its over 100 million users, as the site lost millions just days before the new policy was to take effect.
So while social networks are scheming to use you, it’s interesting that celebrities are relying on wholly owned websites that require no log-in information and are publically accessible. Even more interesting is that the BeyHive Blog heavily relies on pictures to share stories, as Lucky Mag adds.
Beyonce is well-known for her personal moments of gratitude, where she has released several videos thanking fans for their love and support. In past videos, she’s directly thanked fans for attending her world tours, even addressing one of her fans for doing a Beyonce-inspired flash mob in Target, saying, “Thank you so much for that, it really made me happy. I hope everyone sees it!”
It comes as no surprise that Queen B would want to thank her fans in yet another personal but public way with her new blog. It just goes to show how today’s pervasive social networks perhaps have been taking some wrong steps lately.
