Little Monsters launch
Gaga launches LittleMonsters (https://littlemonsters.com/) as an invite-only beta for Gaga’s fans, who she refers to a “Little Monsters”. The site is the first project by Backplane and acts as a social network for her fans. CEO Michelsen says the project, in common with other Backplane project aims to :
Unite people around interests, affinities and movements. Backplane is about bringing together communities and Gaga’s community just so happens to be the community we’re using to learn about proper functionality. We think we can really change the world.
Gaga had called her manager, Carter, after seeing a screening of The Social Network:
She said she’d like to build a social network for her fans, and build a community where they could congregate and have conversations. So I called some of my friends in the Valley.
Carter then talked with Palantir CEO, Lonsdale, which led to the creation of Backplane, which has built the platform for the site. They receive backing from Google Ventures and others.
Backplane
Backplane is founded by Carter, Michelson, Lonsdale and Lady Gaga. The seven-person project aims to provide a way to organize and power online communities based on certain interests, such as sports teams, musicians, and also bring in feeds from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. Gaga has a reported 20% stake in the business. $1 million has been raised in angel funding from investors including Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures.