What is MySpace?

DEFINITION

MySpace is a social network website where you can create a profile and use it to interact with friends, meet new friends and showcase your network. In the Wikipedia article “MySpace”, it is described as:

a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally. ¹

You must be 14 years old or more to set up an account and 75% of the members are over 18 ².

FEATURES

Most MySpace features can be accessed through the global menu, your personal menu and your control panel. With the “New Home Skin” , this control panel is located on the left side of the home page (once you are logged in) and the personal menu is located below the global menu (once you are logged in).

Profile
MySpace profiles include sections such as “About Me”, “Who I’d Like to Meet”, “Interests” and “Details”. Users can also create a blog and upload images, one of which can be set as their default image. A user’ friends can leave comments on their profile page for everyone to see but users retain the right to monitor and delete comments left on their page. MySpace profiles for musicians allow artists to upload up to six mp3 songs. An HTML editor is not available but users can change the look of their profile page by using HTML/DHTML or CSS in any text field.

Mail Center
All MySpace accounts include a Mail Center where you can compose and receive e-mails. This is also where you can track your sent and received friend requests. The Mail Center also gives you access to the Bulletin Board page which allows you to post a bulletin (message) that will show up on all your friends’ bulletin boards. You can delete both your bulletins and the ones posted by your friends.

Groups
Groups are created by common interests which means you can create and join groups related to various subjects. A main group page includes a description of the group, the members that are part of the group, a forum and a bulletin board.

MySpaceIM
MySpaceIM is a stand alone instant messaging software that users can download on their computer. It allows them to chat with friends and to “get instant notification of new MySpace messages, friend requests, and comments” ³.

MySpace TV
MySpace TV is a video sharing service (similar to YouTube) where users can upload and view videos.

MySpace News
MySpace News is a community-based news site (similar to Digg). “MySpace News aggregates news from around the web and provides MySpace users with the ability to rate, discuss, and share what they think is most interesting” ⁴.

Other features includes MySpace Classifieds and MySpace Forums.

POPULARITY

According to Alexa’s Top 500, MySpace is the 6th most popular website on the Internet. It is preceded by Yahoo! (#1), Google (#2), YouTube (#3), Windows Live (#4), and MSN (#5). It is followed by Facebook (#7), hi5 (#8), Wikipedia (#9), and Orkut (#10) ⁵.

The Wikipedia article “List of social networking websites” states that MySpace has around 217,000,000 registered users. Its competitors have less than half this amount of registered users. According to the same article, Habbo has 82,000,000, Orkut has 67,000,000 and Facebook has 58,000,000. Friendster and hi5 seem to be tied at 50,000,000 registered users ⁶.

CRITICISM & CONTROVERSY

Criticism will soon be covered in a separate article.

HISTORY

For the history of MySpace read the article MySpace History.
REFERENCES

1. 1. MySpace, Wikipedia, Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
2. 2. MySpace.com on their Web site safety, msnbc, Jan. 27 2006, Retrieved on January 28, 2008.
3. 3. MySpace, Wikipedia, Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
4. 4. MySpace News FAQ, MySpace, Retrieved on January 24, 2008.
5. 5. Alexa’s Top 500 , Alexa.com, Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
6. 6. List of social networking websites, Wikipedia, Retrieved on January 23, 2008.