MySpace is a social networking website based in West Hollywood, California offering an interactive, user-submitted network of blogs, profiles, groups, photos, MP3s, videos, and an internal e-mail system. According to Alexa Internet, it is currently the world's fourth most popular English-language website and the sixth most popular global website[1]. It is the most popular website in the United States, accounting for 4.46 percent of all Internet visits[2] (note it is possible that other websites have a greater number of unique visitors). MySpace has gradually gained more popularity than similar websites such as Facebook, Bebo, Friendster, Xanga, MyYearbook, FriendsReunited.co.uk, Classmates.com, and LiveJournal to achieve nearly 80 percent of visits to online social networking websites[2]. It has become an increasingly influential part of popular culture, especially in the Anglosphere. MySpace has 300 employees [3], is owned by News Corporation, and does not disclose revenues or profits separately from the totals reported by News Corporation. MySpace currently reports just over 105 million accounts, with the 100 millionth account being created on August 9, 2006[citation needed], reportedly attracting new registrations at the rate of 230,000 per day.[3]
| MySpace logo File:Tom profile.jpg Typical MySpace profile (MySpace founder Tom Anderson's profile shown here) | |
Type of site | Social network service |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Manhattan, New York |
| Owner | News Corporation |
| Created by | Tom Anderson |
| Commercial | Mixed |
| Registration | Required |
The creators of MySpace have hosted many parties in Hollywood, San Diego, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, New York City, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Hawaii, and McAllen, Texas to support the site. The headquarters of MySpace is in Los Angeles, but its parent company News Corporation is headquartered in New York City.
MySpace is also home to various independent musicians, independent filmmakers, and up and coming comedians who upload songs, short films, and other work directly onto their profile. These songs and films can also be embedded in other profiles, an interconnectedness which adds to MySpace's appeal for musicians, filmmakers, and comedians alike. Because of the high popularity, mainstream musicians filmmakers, and comedians alike have continued this trend as well.[citation needed]
History
Before the creation of the current social networking website, the MySpace.com domain name was already 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 original site shut down and sold all of its users' information in 2001 [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].
On July 22, 2006, the MySpace servers in Los Angeles encountered a major power outage due to record-breaking heat caused by the 2006 North American heat wave[7].
Contents of a MySpace profile
Each profile contains two standard "blurbs": "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" sections. Profiles also can contain sections about standard interests. Usually it's found under the "General" section of one's profile. A profile also contains under the "General" section, areas for specific personal details, such as Marital Status, Physical Appearance, and Income. However, these features have the ability of not being displayed on the page by simply not filling them in or covering them up with certain codes. Profiles also contain a blog with standard fields for content, emotion, and media. MySpace also supports uploading images. One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image," the image that will be seen on the profile's main page, search page, and as the image that will appear to the side of the user's name on comments, messages, etc. MySpace has also added the option to upload videos that are played via a standalone Flash player.
Also displayed is a count of a user's friends, as well as a "Top Friends" area. Users can choose a certain number of friends to be displayed on their profile in the "Top Friends" area. The "Top Friends" used to be restricted to eight friends. People bypassed this limitation by using third-party tools to emulate a "Top X" friends. Currently, MySpace allows up to 24 friends to be displayed in the "Top Friends" area. This feature has been known to cause problems among users from people who are upset about not being on a person's Top friends list, or not being placed high enough up on the list. Users can also get upset if they are deleted from someone else's friends list.
Below the "Top Friends" area (by default) is the "comments" section, wherein the user's friends may leave comments for all viewers to read. Although comments are publicly accessible, many users leave personal comments regardless, allowing any reader to know their business. MySpace users have the option to delete any comment and/or require all comments to be approved before posting.
MySpace gives users some flexibility to modify their user pages. Although JavaScript is not allowed, HTML and CSS can be used to change the vast majority of the profile to a user's preference. Users also have the option to add embedded music into their profiles via MySpace Music, a service that allows bands to post songs on their respective profiles. Videos and any other content can also be added. A large number of websites offer tools to help MySpace users customize their profiles, including pre-made layouts and CSS code generators. Many different "MySpace editors" are available for those who do not know HTML.
Some people with experience in web design choose to completely hide the default layout and create a Div profile on top of it, in order to display their profile information in any way they wish.[citation needed]
MySpace International
MySpace has an option to access MySpace through different regional websites, much like Google and other search engines. These include the Global site, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, UK, and US. Ironically the URL of the US website is the same as the global one. The alternative regional websites compensate for the different spelling variations and date preferences in the Anglosphere, e.g. US = favorites, 08/30/2006 and UK = favourites, 30/08/2006.
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Criticism of MySpace
Accessibility
Currently, not one single MySpace page on the entire website satisfies the critera for valid HTML laid down by the W3C[1]. This causes accessibility problems on users' profiles. Furthermore, MySpace is set up so that anyone can customize the layout and colors of their profile page with virtually no restrictions, provided that the advertisements aren't covered up by CSS or using other means. As MySpace users may not be skilled web developers, this can cause futher problems. Poorly constructed MySpace profiles could potentially freeze up web browsers due to malformed CSS coding, or as a result of users placing many high bandwidth objects such as videos, graphics, and Flash in their profiles (often multiple videos and soundfiles are playing at the same time).
In addition, the MySpace community is growing. New features have been put on the page, such as video and song sharing, through streaming media. The 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 increase in usage sometimes slows down the servers and may result in a "Server Too Busy" error message for some users who are on at peak hours, or a variety of any other error messages throughout the day.
MySpace detractors claim that the site encourages poor web design habits.
MySpace in educational settings
Many schools and public libraries in the United States and the United Kingdom 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 students from accessing MySpace at home.[9] In Autumn, 2005 Pope John XXIII Regional High School made headlines by forbidding its students to have pages on MySpace or similar websites, or face suspension. [2] The school claimed that this action was made to protect its students from online predators. [10]
Recently, it has been reported that certain universities have began searches on MySpace in order to discover evidence of illegal drug use among potential applicants[citation needed]. In addition, several high schools have adopted similar policies. Starting in the 2006 school year Libertyville High School in Libertyville, Illinois will search MySpace for any evidence of drug use among football players. [3]
Colleges and universities in the United States have also started to adopt policies governing what type of information can be disclosed on athletes' websites, to avoid university athletic programs from potentially embarrassing revelations. [4] Several universities have also expressed concern about inappropriate contacts that MySpace pages foster between high school football players and university alumni seeking to convince them to come to their alma mater.
MySpace and businesses
Due to the high use of bandwidth and misuse 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, in their Apple Stores) have sometimes prevented access to MySpace to prevent customers from using excessive bandwidth, although Apple Computer reversed its decision and now allows customers to visit MySpace.[11]
MySpace and professionalism
The 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 postal 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.[12] Profiles with ages set to 14 to 15 years are automatically private. Users whose ages are set at 16 or over do have the option to restrict their profiles, [13] as well as the option of merely allowing certain personal data to be restricted to people other than those on their "friends list". The full profile of or messaging someone under the age of 18 is restricted to their direct MySpace friends only.
As a result of negative publicity of MySpace, the Fox television network announced that they will post public service ads warning children of those dangers. Also, Massachusetts has called on MySpace to raise the age limit of their users in order to better protect children by restricting their use. 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 been the focus of a number of news reports stating that teenagers have found ways around the restrictions set by MySpace, and have been the target of online predators.[14] In response, MySpace has given assurances to parents that the site is safe for people of all ages. Beginning in late June 2006, MySpace users whose ages are set over 18 could no longer be able to add users whose ages are set from 14 to 15 years as friends unless they knew the user's full name and/or email address, and vice versa. [15] Some 3rd party Internet Safety companes like Social Shield[16] has launched online communities for parents concerned about their child's safety on MySpace.
It is uncertain as to why pro-American laws and attitudes concerning online safety are being intergrated into MySpace when MySpace is a global website. Outside the US, most notably Australia, MySpace isn't as a big security issue as in the United States.
MSNBC has reported that MySpace is a "hotbed" for spyware, and that infection rates are rising because of MySpace. [17]
Musicians' rights and the user agreement
Until June 2006, there was a building and great concern amongst musicians, artists, and bands on MySpace owing to the fine print within the user agreement that read, "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."
The fine print brought particular concern as the agreement was being made with Murdoch's News Corporation. Songwriter Billy Bragg brought the issue to the attention of the media during the first week of June 2006. Jeff Berman, a MySpace spokesman swiftly responded by saying, "Because the legalese has caused some confusion, we are at work revising it to make it very clear that MySpace is not seeking a license to do anything with an artist's work other than allow it to be shared in the manner the artist intends."
By June 27, MySpace had lived up to their word and amended the user agreement with, "MySpace.com does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, 'Content') that you post to the MySpace Services. After posting your Content to the MySpace Services, you continue to retain all ownership rights in such Content, and you continue to have the right to use your Content in any way you choose."
Social and cultural
Dave Itzkoff, in the June 2006 issue of Playboy magazine, related his experiences experimenting with membership in MySpace. Among his criticisms are that the distance afforded by the Internet emboldens members, such as females who feature photos of themselves in little clothing on their profile pages, to behave in ways that they would not behave in person, and that this duplicity undercuts the central philosophy of MySpace, which is to bring people together. Itzkoff also references the addictive, time-consuming nature of the website, mentioning that Playboy Playmate and MySpace member Julie McCullough, who was the first to respond to his Add request, refers to the website as "cybercrack". Itzkoff claims that MySpace gives many people access to a member’s life, without giving the time needed to maintain such relationships, and that such relationships do not possess the depth of in-person relationships.
Itzkoff is particularly critical of the disturbing and fraudulent behavior of people who can contact a member, unsolicited, as when he was contacted by someone expressing a desire to socialize and date, but whose blog (to which Itzkoff was directed via subsequent emails) turned out to be a solicitation for a series of commercial porn sites. Itzkoff is also critical of more subtle commercial solicitations on the site, such as the banner ads and links to profiles and video clips that turn out to be commercials for new 20th Century Fox films. Itzkoff also observes that MySpace’s much-celebrated music section is heavily weighted in favor of record labels rather than breakthrough musicians.
Itzkoff also relates criticism from another person he calls "Judas", who asserts that while the goal of attempting to bring together people who might not otherwise associate with one another in real life may seem honorable, it violates a social contract that exists when people interact in person, which render MySpace nothing more than a passing fad:
- "There will come a moment when, like deer quivering and flicking up their ears toward a noiseless noise in the woods, the first adopters will suddenly realize they’re spending their time blogging and adding and gawking at the same alarming photos an army of 14-year olds are and, quick as deer, they’ll dash to the next trend. And before you know it, we’ll all follow.”
Usage and Utility
The features of Myspace are oftentimes misused by the users or not used in the way that Tom Anderson intended them so. A prominent example is the comment system - the ability to leave public comments on users' profiles. Whereas it is intended as a method of commenting on the profile itself or about the person, it is invariably used to send messages to the person. This very public communication parades the users' online social communication. This system also produces inconvenient transfers between users. Often times a comment will be a reply to a comment, and as such use the context of the original comment. In order to understand what is being said you must look at the other user's page and scroll down to the comment used as a context.
Legal issues
In May 2006, Long Island, New York teenagers Shaun Harrison and Saverio Mondelli were charged with illegal computer access and attempted extortion of MySpace, after both had allegedly hacked into the site to steal the personal information of MySpace users before threatening to share the secrets of how they broke into the website unless MySpace paid them $150,000 US. Both teens were arrested by undercover Los Angeles detectives, posing as MySpace employees.[18]
On July 28 2006, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill banning unsupervised minors from using chat rooms and social networking web sites, such as MySpace, in libraries and schools receiving certain types of federal funding. This bill, known as the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), was approved by a 410-15 vote and was sent to the United States Senate for approval.
MySpace celebrities
MySpace has led to the creation of MySpace celebrities, popular individuals who have attracted hundreds of thousands of "friends", which may lead to coverage in other media. The June 2006 issue of Playboy magazine, for example, featured a "Women of MySpace" nude pictorial (though ironically, an article somewhat critical of the website ran in the same issue). Through MySpace, such people 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 individuals have remained only Internet celebrities, others have been able to jump to television, magazines, and radio. Examples include Christine "ForBiddeN" Dolce's appearance on The Tyra Banks Show and Tila Tequila's covers for Stuff & Maxim magazines.
Furthermore, MySpace's music section has helped many amateur bands progress. One illustrative example is English band Arctic Monkeys, who owe some of their success to the publicity that MySpace generated for them. When asked about the popularity of the band's MySpace website in an interview with Prefix magazine, the band pointed out that they did not even know what MySpace was, and that their page had originally been created by their fans. It has been claimed that Pop artist Lily Allen's new fame is also due in part to her being promoted on MySpace, but Lily herself denies this: in response to an interview question[19], "the way it's been portrayed in the media, is that you were almost like discovered by MySpace; how accurate is that?", Lily responded "not accurate at all, I had a record deal before I set up my MySpace account so, erm, that's ... couldn't really be further from the truth". Also, G4's hit show Attack of the Show! has a "MySpace Girl of the Week" segment.
Rivalry with YouTube
YouTube first appeared on the web in early 2005, and it quickly gained popularity on MySpace due to MySpace members who embedded YouTube videos in their MySpace profiles. Realizing the competitive threat to the new MySpace Videos service, MySpace banned embedded YouTube videos from its user profiles. MySpace users widely protested the ban, prompting MySpace to re-enable the feature shortly thereafter. [20]
Since then YouTube has become one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web [21], outgrowing MySpace's reach on Alexa. [22] In July 2006 several news organizations reported that YouTube had overtaken MySpace. [23]
Media outlets on MySpace
With the popularity of the website growing each day, there are some media outlets that have chosen to create pages to promote their existence. With the coming of two brand new television broadcast networks, The CW and My Network TV (which MySpace parent News Corporation also owns), getting the word out about the new networks is also a reason that media outlets, and even some local televison stations, choose to create pages. Examples of television stations that have made pages on the website include: KASY and KWBQ (from Albuquerque, New Mexico), WBUW (from Madison, Wisconsin), and three stations from South Texas: KRIS, KDF, and The CW South Texas. There are also two stations in Washington that have pages: KXMN (from Spokane), and KSTW (from Seattle). Another media outlet, The Daily Buzz newscast also has a page. As well as radio station personalities having MySpace profiles, several radio stations also have MySpace pages.
See also
References
- ^ Alexa Internet's top 500 English-language websites and top 500 global websites. Retrieved August 09, 2006.
- ^ a b "MySpace gains top ranking of US Web sites". Reuters. 2006-07-11. Retrieved 2006-08-09.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Sellers, Patricia (2006-08-24). "MySpace Cowboys". CNN. Retrieved 2006-08-28.
- ^ "Online storage firm shutters file depot". CNET. 2001-05-31. Retrieved 2005-12-29.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "News Corporation to Acquire Intermix Media, Inc" (Press release). Intermix Media. 2005-07-18. Retrieved 2005-12-29.
{{cite press release}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "MySpace looks to UK music scene". BBC News. 2006-01-24. Retrieved 2006-01-24.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "MySpace closed after power outage". BBC News. 2006-07-23. Retrieved 2006-07-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Schools race to restrict MySpace". Curriculum Review. October 2005.
- ^ "The MySpace case". The Daily News, Washington. 2006-01-22. Retrieved 2006-02-15.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Blogging ban provokes a debate over cyberspace: Pope John H.S. demands that online profiles end, calls forums havens for sexual predators, Daily Record, October 24, 2005
- ^ "Some Stores Now Blocking MySpace.com". ifoAppleStore. 2006-04-23.
- ^ MySpace terms of service
- ^ Anderson, Tom (2006-06-22). "Private profiles". MySpace Stuff. Retrieved 2006-07-25.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "MySpace, Facebook attract online predators". MSNBC.
- ^ "MySpace plans restrictions to protect younger teens". San Jose Mercury News.
- ^ "Social Shield Offers Help for Parents Struggling with Children on Myspace.com and other Social Networks". PR Web.
- ^ "Social-networking sites a 'hotbed' for spyware". MSNBC.
- ^ "The Register, Teen hack suspects charged over MySpace extortion bid". The Register.
- ^ "triple j radio, Australia - video piece about MySpace". triple j/ABC.
- ^ Carlos (2006-01-10). "So That's Why MySpace Blocked YouTube". Techdirt.com. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
- ^ "YouTube Fastest Growing Website" Advertising Age
- ^ "Info for YouTube.com". Alexa.com. 2006-07-26. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
- ^ "YouTube overtakes MySpace". Guardian Unlimited. 2006-07-31. Retrieved 2006-07-31.
External links
- MySpace.com MySpace Homepage
- Tom Anderson MySpace Founder Homepage