MySpace. Beyond The Phenomenon.

For the teenagers, MySpace is perhaps the best place to be in at this time. If you’re a teenager and you’re not a member, then you’re not hip at all. With millions of people using this website on a regular basis, the owner – News Corporation – is at an all time high. What could be more successful than making MySpace the most popular virtual hangout not only for teens but for people of various ages as well.

But on the other hand, MySpace’s instant phenomenal success has also led to its major setback. The website has suddenly come under attack because of the danger it poses to teenage users. Parents are now wary about what may happen to their children who regularly go online on MySpace where they reveal their personal information.

A major blow

Police are now looking into cases of sexual assault against teenage girls who use the site MySpace.com. Seven young ladies were recently sexually assaulted by men they met through this popular website. MySpace follows the footsteps of Friendster and The Facebook by being a social networking site where users can create profiles that include their photos, personal information and even contact numbers.

Parents have filed numerous complaints against MySpace where their children can just post and view indecent and sexually suggestive materials. Visitors to the site can also search for information about users by schools, age or geographical location. What many teenagers also do not know is that the other teens they get to chat with and befriend on MySpace may not be real teenagers at all but older men pretending to be younger and who are in search of a victim. With the detailed information provided on their profiles such as their full names, birthdate and birthplace, their likes, their favorite hangout and even their cell phone numbers, these teens are easy targets of people who want to cause harm.

The management of MySpace, however, was quick to say that they have a commitment to provide a safe environment for its members adding that it will cooperate with the state Attorney General to address this present problem. It further revealed several initiatives to protect users against indecent conduct and content. These are assigning workers to monitor the website round the clock, reviewing images hosted by MySpace.com and working together with law enforcement agencies.

What users can do

Users of MySpace.com must at least be 14 years old. By joining the site, a user can then create his or her own profile – information about himself and his friends including their photos. Members are also warned against posting any “personally identifiable material.” Many teenagers who use the site, however, say this advice is often not followed. A lot of young people are just so excited to use the site that they reveal too much about themselves.

MySpace users have the freedom to decorate their pages and add new pictures (most often the ladies post sexy photos). They can use new colors, backgrounds and images they like. They can write poetry, post their art works and write about themselves in any way they want.

For the musically-inclined users, they can play music for their friends and can even post music videos from popular artists or from the not-so-popular ones. They can naturally create their own music or perhaps, make their own lyrics but using the melody of an original song. With this set-up, MySpace is indeed becoming a popular avenue for aspiring musicians to reach out to their fans and attain stardom.

Economic gains

Only three years in existence, yet MySpace has already gained so many feathers in its cap. It ranked fourth, even ahead of eBay and Google in terms of the number of pages viewed and the second most-trafficked site on the Internet, according to ComScore Media Metrix, a web measurement firm. It also ranked 18th in the most-visited site on the web category for November 2006.

Users of MySpace are aged from 14 to 34 and members are growing by five million each month. The site was named by Google as the top gainer for 2005 because of an overwhelming membership gain of 47.3 million from zero in only two years time. Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson are the original founders of MySpace. Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. took over the management six months after the site’s launching in 2004.

Entrepreneurs have also gained advantage of MySpace’s millions of visitors. Taking after eBay and Google, MySpace is now opening opportunities for small businesses who help users decorate their profiles or create tools that enable advertisers to gain from site users. News Corp. reportedly sells $13 million in ad revenues every month, according to analyst Richard Greenfield of Pali Research.

A freshman college student of Southern Illinois University has earned over $200,000 since June 2006 by simply operating Pimpmyspace.com and Myspaceeditor.org. Louis Ramos said his two sites provide MySpace users with free tools which can help them upgrade their profiles. He said Internet companies have expressed desire to buy his sites at a six-figure rate. Ramos is just one of the many computer programmers who offer this kind of tool for a certain fee. Other sub-sites create and sell software aimed at automating tasks within the Myspace network such as inviting and confirming friends, posting messages and sending bulletins.

The future

Although MySpace boasts of millions of users and millions of dollars in earnings, some analysts predict a not-so-bright future for the site because of deceiving facts and lesser active participation among users. Nate Elliot of Jupiter Research says the 50-60 million registered users the site claims to have is quite bloated. It’s true that the site generates numerous activities and may have millions of users but they’re only part of the whole picture. Elliot pointed out that all registered members do not necessarily go back as only a portion use the site regularly and only a fraction contribute to traffic. This means that not all users actively participate on a regular basis. And with lesser active members on MySpace, the analyst sees the number of advertisers interested in shelling out money for the site may eventually drop.

Записки путешественника по жизни.