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Myspace

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MySpace
MySpace logo
File:MySpace screenshot.png
Typical MySpace profile (MySpace founder Tom Anderson's profile shown here)
Type of site
social network service
OwnerNews Corporation
Created byTom Anderson
Commercialmixed
RegistrationRequired

MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive network of blogs, user profiles, groups, photos and an internal e-mail system. According to Alexa Internet, as of May 2006 it is the world's fourth most popular English-language website and the fifth most popular in the world[1]. Note that this is based on exceptionally intense usage by a relatively limited number of visitors, many more than five English language sites have a higher "reach" measurement, that is they are visited by more different people each day. MySpace has outstripped competitors such as MSN Spaces, Friendster and LiveJournal to become the most popular English-language social networking website with higher traffic and just over eighty million registered accounts. It has become an increasingly influential part of contemporary teenage culture, especially in the Anglosphere. MySpace has 250 employees and projects a 2006 revenue of US$20M. [2]

History

Prior to the creation of the current social networking website the MySpace.com domain name was registered in 1998 to an online storage and file sharing firm. Registration was free and users were able to obtain a small disk quota which would gradually increase if they referred new members to the site. Due to slow service and a lack of revenue, the site shut down and sold all of its users' information in 2001 [3].

Prior to that use, MySpace.com was home to a web design firm. [4]

The current MySpace service was founded in July 2003 by Tom Anderson (an alumnus of both UC Berkeley and UCLA), the current president, Chris DeWolfe (a graduate of USC's Marshall School of Business), the current CEO, and a small team of programmers. It was partially owned by Intermix Media, which was bought in July 2005 for $580 million by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (the parent company of Fox Broadcasting and other media enterprises) [5]. In January 2006, Fox announced plans to launch a UK version of MySpace in a bid to "tap into the UK music scene" [6].

The creators of MySpace have hosted many parties in Hollywood, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, New York City, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Hawaii, and McAllen, Texas to support the site. The headquarters are in Los Angeles, but the parent company is headquartered in New York City.

MySpace is also home to various independent musicians, who post songs directly on their profile. These songs can also be uploaded onto other profiles. Because of the high popularity, mainstream musicians have entered this trend as well. CDs of independent music are sold in various establishments.

In February 2006, amateur filmmaker David Lehre released The MySpace Movie, a short film which quickly became an Internet phenomenon, registering over 6 million hits in the first three months following its release.[7].

Also in this month, most of the BBC Radio 1 DJs set up profiles and mentioned them very frequently. This is somewhat controversial as the BBC usually avoids any mention of individual companies. In the United States, the influential Major Label Music Network, a MySpace group that networks major level recording artists (and indy or unsigned acts) with major level industry executives, companies and major level professionals, also includes highly influential U.S. commercial radio stations KROQ and WAAF, both of whom maintain profiles on MySpace, as do popular U.S. DJ's in the group.

Contents of a MySpace profile

Each profile contains two standard "blurbs": "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" pages. Profiles also can contain sections about standard interests, such as music, television, books, and movies, as well as specific personal details, such as marital status, physical appearance, and income. Profiles also contain a blog. A part of customizing ones MySpace is uploading images onto their site. One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image," the image that will be seen on the profile's main page and as the image that will appear to the side of the user's name on comments, messages, etc. MySpace has also recently added the option to upload videos as well.

There is also a count of the friends the user has. A total of eight, twelve, or sixteen friends, or the "Top 8/12/16" (now simply called the "Top Friends"), are shown directly on the profile, with a link to a page which lists all of the user's friends. The "Top Friends" often becomes a touchy subject as it forces one to choose between friends, sometimes influenced by showing up on someone else's.

Below this is the "comments" section, wherein the user's friends may leave comments about the user for all viewers to read. Although comments are publicly accessible, many users leave personal comments anyway, allowing any reader to know their business. Many MySpace users will choose to moderate comments, meaning they must be approved in order to be viewed by the public.

MySpace profile layouts can have the entire look changed with many different editors available from other websites. For example; one can change their "Top Friends" to show any number of friends, or hide the feature. Using HTML and CSS, the colors, background and foreground images, table style, scroll bar style and color (Internet Explorer only, as this is not an official CSS property), could be changed to suit their preference. One can also add music to their profile either by visiting an artist's page and choosing a song from MySpace's music player, or using a customized music player or embedded media file.

There are many people who are making careers out of promotion on MySpace. From bands, to celebrities, to exotic car dealers, many people have found MySpace to be an invaluable tool for advocating their goods and services. There are automated tools known as bots to help aid in increasing ones reach on MySpace.

Criticism of MySpace

Terms of Service

A growing number of the bands and musicians with profiles on MySpace, especially those in the DIY punk and hardcore scenes, are uneasy with the News Corporation purchase of MySpace.com.[1], [2]

These concerns are primarily over this clause in the MySpace Terms Of Service:

"By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content, messages, text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, profiles, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") on or through the Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services."[3]

News Corporation owns thousands of media outlets, including television and radio stations and at least one record label that could be potential sublicensees. MySpace claims that this clause is needed to ensure that it has the right to host member profiles. However, critics point to many sites [4], [5]that host content for free that do not require posters to relinquish copyright.

Accessibility

There are often accessibility problems on users' profiles, stemming from the fact that MySpace is set up so that anyone can customize the layout and colors of their profile page with virtually no restrictions. As most MySpace users are not skilled web developers, this sometimes causes some problems. Poorly constructed MySpace profiles have been known to freeze up web browsers due to malformed CSS coding, or as a result of users placing many high bandwidth objects such as videos and Flash in their profiles.

In addition, the MySpace community is growing. New features have been put on the page, such as video and song sharing, through streaming media. With an unprecedented amount of MySpace users joining daily due to these new features, and its media publicity, means that more users are online at any given time. This sudden increase in usage slows down the servers and may result in a "Server Too Busy" error message for many users at peak hours, or a variety of any other error messages throughout the day.

MySpace in educational settings

Many schools and public libraries in the US and the UK have begun to restrict access to MySpace because it has become "such a haven for student gossip and malicious comments"[8]. Some private schools have even attempted to ban their pupils from accessing MySpace at home[9].

In 2006, Del Mar Community College blocked all access to MySpace. Network administrators cited network strain from excessive MySpace traffic as the reason for blocking the social network. According to Del Mar's chief of technology, MySpace was consuming 40% of the college's daily internet bandwidth, impeding on the college's web-based courses. [10].

MySpace and businesses

Due to the high use of bandwidth and maluse of the computers in various retail stores, businesses are taking measures to block out the website to prevent customers from using their demonstration computers for personal purposes only. One such blocked site was MySpace Videos, which was blocked from a large collection of networks and universities, for creating an excessive amount of bandwidth usage from videos. Additionally, some routers are providing firmware updates that include the automatic banning of MySpace.

Companies with computers available for public use (like Apple Computer) have sometimes prevented access to MySpace to prevent customers from using excessive bandwidth[11], although Apple Computer reversed its decision and now allows customers to visit MySpace.[12]

MySpace and professionalism

Chicago Tribune's RedEye printed an article concerning MySpace and an individual's search for employment. It was argued that young college graduates compromise their chances of starting careers because of the content they post on their accounts. For instance, a visitor does not need an account to browse for users using information that is readily available on resumes and applications, such as a zip code and age. A potential employer can utilize information provided by the applicant on MySpace's browse component. Thus, the employer may not hire a highly qualified candidate because he or she maintains an account suggesting rambunctious behavior. Moreover, employees were said to be putting their careers at risk because they maintain blogs that criticize their respective companies and organizations.

Security

MySpace allows registering users to be as young as 14 ([6]). Profiles with ages set to 14 or 15 years are automatically private. Users whose ages are set at 16 or over do not have the option to restrict their profiles. Viewing the full profile of or messaging someone under the age of 16 is restricted to their direct MySpace friends only. According to the MySpace.com Terms of Service, lying about one's age to make one's profile private defeats the purpose of social networking and is considered fraud[citation needed]. Any profile caught doing it will be deleted. As an alternative, MySpace.com suggests removing restricted information from public view.

Despite the privacy of young persons' profiles, some consider there still to be a risk. It is possible that some may compromise their security and privacy by posting information such as their home address, phone number, or last name due to their lack of experience. This information could, theoretically, put a person in danger. As a result, Fox says that they will post public service ads warning children of those dangers. Also, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has called on MySpace to raise the age limit of their users in order to better protect children by restricting their use. [7] Republican Pennsylvania Representative Mike Fitzpatrick has also introduced legislation (H.R.5319) to ban usage of the site in public places, such as schools and libraries, and to have the power to tap into usage of the website in those places.

Recently, MySpace has had an alarming number of news reports stating that teenagers have found ways around the restrictions set by MySpace, and have been the target of online predators [8]. In response, MySpace assures parents that the site is safe for people of all ages. Some webpages are actually fraudulent, placed by teenagers such as this page, posted by an eighth-grader, who depicts his bedridden 97 year old dying great uncle as a swinger cruising the internet for young children. [9] Myspace has no methods whatsoever in place to prevent this.

MySpace Celebrities

MySpace has led to the creation of enigmas known as MySpace Celebrities, or "MyCelebs". Popular individuals have attracted hundreds of thousands of friends, up to millions. By having this resource, the MyCelebs are able to distribute information regarding their activities, events they are hosting, or projects they are working on (e.g. Albums or Clothing lines). Though some of these MyCelebs have remained only internet celebrities, others have been able to jump to television, magazines, and radio. Examples include Forbidden's appearance on The Tyra Show and Tila Tequila's cover for Stuff magazine. Others include MyCeleb Jeffree Star and new MyCelebs growing in popularity, already having accumulated attention from local and regional media, such as Raquel Reed, Ron Decor, and Hanna Beth. The popularity of such MyCelebs has created a fascination with having large numbers of friends, and Social networking spam programs to mass request, mass message, mass comment, and mass event invite.

See also

References

  1. ^ Alexa Internet Alexa Web Search - top 500 English-language websites and top 500 global websites. Retrieved March 23, 2006.
  2. ^ "For MySpace, Making Friends Was Easy. Big Profit Is Tougher". New York Times. April 23, 2006.
  3. ^ CNN, May 31, 2001. Online storage firm shutters file depot. Retrieved December 29, 2005.
  4. ^ Internet Archive. MySpace.com homepage from February 28, 1996. Retrieved March 23, 2006.
  5. ^ Intermix Media, July 18, 2005. News Corporation to Acquire Intermix Media, Inc.. Retrieved December 29, 2005.
  6. ^ BBC News, January 24, 2006. MySpace looks to UK music scene. Retrieved January 24, 2006.
  7. ^ David Lehre - MySpace: The Movie
  8. ^ Curriculum Review, October 2005. Schools race to restrict MySpace.
  9. ^ The Daily News, Washington, January 22, 2006. The MySpace case. Retrieved February 15, 2006.
  10. ^ http://news.tmcnet.com/news/-myspacecom-del-mar-block-access-voip-/2006/04/24/1601159.htm
  11. ^ http://www.ifoapplestore.com/2006/04/23/some-stores-now-blocking-myspacecom/
  12. ^ http://www.ifoAppleStore.com/blog/2006/04/i-took-hit-from-one-person-over-my.html
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