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I have now become fascinated with how celebrities use social media. As with anything, they aren't like us and really have to take some sort of precautions when posting tweets and photos...Well, they should anyway...I'm looking at you Courteney Love! Seriously though, there is now an actual business called WhoSay that helps celebrities control their online images. The article says, "A company called WhoSay - a little-known start-up with a clientele that is anything but little known - offers similar services, but grants ownership of the images to the stars themselves." It's another interesting facet of how social media is changing even the way celebrities must handle their image. Operating in "stealth mode" since last year, WhoSay runs from the Los Angeles office building of the Creative Artists Agency, which represents a Rolodex of household names, including Mr. Hanks. His WhoSay site includes "copyright Tom Hanks" branding and a stack of fine print at the bottom asserting his legal ownership of all content, placed against warnings of "fines and imprisonment" for improper use.

This is fascinating. Brings to mind things like "trending" and data mining." Is that what this company is doing?

Politicians should be all over this company.

Another product of social media - insta-internet star! BTW, Rebecca's Black's video is now up to over 159 million views and the song was covered on Glee!

Now I see how people on youtube make money...I didn't know they paid per view...makes sense.

I think that this is one of the great benefits of social media. People have a chance to make something of themselves without spending millions of dollars in advertisements. It's not just about celebrity status, but more importantly, people can create businesses or help causes using these cheaper tools.