Jermaine Dupri is officially announcing his Global 14 social network. G14 was designed and developed by JD to be the “coolest, hippest city” on the Internet. While Dupri is a super producer and music industry mogul, Global 14 isn’t just about music.
“Global 14 was created because of the increasing trend of ‘social notifying’ versus ‘social networking,’ says Dupri. “Social notifying is when people share information, such as in ‘Hey, check out this website.’ There’s no conversation or expectation of a response.”
Dupri goes on to say that “there is no real social networking anymore.” People are posting updates to Facebook and Twitter, but there is minimal engagement. Not much dialogue is going on. People seem more interested in follower counts than actual discussion. JD says, “At G14, if you hit me up with a question, nine times out of ten, I’ll respond. I’m talking with people all day on there.”
In less than three months, Global 14 has secured over 10,650 subscribers and receives about 100,000 unique visitors a month. The mechanics of the site are what you’d expect, where members “friend” and follow each other and post conversations to their pages. The site also features nearly 500 discussion groups with topics ranging from dating and relationships to cooking, education, music, and sex.
Global 14 has also caught the attention of celebrities. Mariah Carey, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Nelly, Kelly Rowland, Bow Wow, Monica, Anthony Hamilton, and Kevin Hart have all signed up. You can also catch YouTube sensation Dondria, who JD hunted down based on her videos and eventually signed.
Besides simply socializing, JD has loftier goals for G14. He wants to use the service to educate as well as engage.
“I’m trying to encourage young America to get more involved in what’s going on with social media and the tech world,” says Dupri. “I want to show them that we can use computers for more than just watching crazy videos, posting pictures and reading about celebrities.”
Check out Global 14 and tell us what you think.
h/t Mike Street