Taylor Swift Stays on the Cutting Edge

Taylor Swift, who famously used MySpace to increase her popularity (to the tune of more than 200 million music downloads), has found yet another way to connect with her fans: Twitter. But for Taylor, who prides herself on being business-savvy, it's simply another way to expand her star power.

"The cool thing about the music industry is that it's always changing," Taylor tells Whirl magazine. "There are always new platforms to get in touch with people, and I always want to be on the cutting edge of all those platforms. Twitter has just become big in the last couple of months. And my dad's a stockbroker, so it's all about trying to figure out what's going to be huge tomorrow and getting in front of it."

Taylor takes pride in making those decisions for herself, and even with her increased fame, she has no plans to pass any of the work off to anyone else. "I don't really have a manager," admits the 19-year-old. "I have about five or six people who I really trust. I think it's important that I'm there at every single meeting. When I'm home, it's not playtime and fun games and days off. I'm at the management building every single day, planning our next step and organizing our next move. It's gotten to a place where it's like, well, do we really need a manager if it's all been us the whole time? ... If it ain't broke ... you know?"

While it may seem that her latest album, 'Fearless,' implies Taylor is never afraid to take on new challenges, she quickly puts that theory to rest. "It isn't that you're completely unafraid," she says. "I think fearless is having fears, but jumping anyway."

In addition to being the youngest person ever nominated for the upcoming CMA Award for Entertainer of the Year, and having two multi-platinum albums to her credit, Taylor also recently jumped into the role of actress. After a brief appearance in close friend Miley Cyrus's big-screen 'Hannah Montana: The Movie,' Taylor will next be seen in a larger film role in 'Valentine's Day,' alongside an all-star cast that includes Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Bradley Cooper, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Alba, Ashton Kutcher, ex-boyfriend Joe Jonas and 'Twilight: New Moon' star Taylor Lautner.