According to comScore, Myspace was overtaken internationally by its main competitor, Facebook, in April 2008, based on monthly unique visitors. Myspace employs 1,000 employees, after laying off 30 percent of its workforce in June 2009; the company does not disclose revenues or profits separately from News Corporation. Quantcast estimates MySpace's monthly U.S. unique visitors at 43.2 million (Dell Studio XPS 1340 Battery) .
The 100 millionth account was created on August 9, 2006, in the Netherlands.
History
Fox Interactive Media headquarters, 407 North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills, California, where Myspace is also housed.
After the 2002 launch of Friendster, several eUniverse employees with Friendster accounts saw its potential and decided to mimic the more popular features of the social networking website, in August 2003 (Dell Studio XPS 1640 Battery) .
Within 10 days, the first version of Myspace was ready for launch. A complete infrastructure of finance, human resources, technical expertise, bandwidth, and server capacity was available for the site, right out of the gate, so the Myspace team wasn’t distracted with typical start-up issues (Dell Vostro 1710 Battery) .
The project was overseen by Brad Greenspan (eUniverse's Founder, Chairman, CEO), who managed Chris DeWolfe (MySpace's starting CEO), Josh Berman, Tom Anderson (MySpace's starting president), and a team of programmers and resources provided by eUniverse.
The very first Myspace users were eUniverse employees (Sony VGP-BPS13 battery) .
The company held contests to see who could sign-up the most users.The company then used its resources to push Myspace to the masses. eUniverse used its 20 million users and e-mail subscribers to quickly breathe life into MySpace,and move it to the head of the pack of social networking websites. A key architect was tech expert Toan Nguyen who helped stabilize the Myspace platform when Brad Greenspan asked him to join the team (Sony VGP-BPS13/B battery) .
The origin of the MySpace.com domain was a site owned by YourZ.com, Inc. It was intended to be a leading online data storage and sharing site up until 2002. By 2004, Myspace and MySpace.com, which existed as a brand associated with YourZ.com, had made the transition from a virtual storage site to a social networking site (Sony VGP-BPS13/S battery) .
This is the natural connection to Chris DeWolfe and a friend, who reminded him he had earlier bought the URL domain, MySpace.com, intending it to be used as a web hosting site, since both worked at one time in the virtual data storage business, which itself was a casualty of the "dot bomb" era.
Shortly after launching the site, team member Chris DeWolfe suggested that they start charging a fee for the basic Myspace service (Sony VGP-BPS13A/B battery) .
Brad Greenspan nixed the idea, believing that keeping Myspace free and open was necessary to make it a large and successful community.
Some employees of Myspace including DeWolfe and Berman were later able to purchase equity in the property before MySpace, and its parent company eUniverse (now renamed Intermix Media) was bought in July 2005 for US$580 million by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (the parent company of Fox Broadcasting and other media enterprises) (Sony VGP-BPS13B/B battery)
Of this amount, approximately US$327 million has been attributed to the value of Myspace according to the financial adviser fairness opinion.
In January 2006, Fox announced plans to launch a UK version of Myspace in a bid to "tap into the UK music scene" which they have since done. They also released a version in China and have since launched similar versions in other countries (Sony VGP-BPL9 battery) .
By late 2007 into 2008, Myspace was considered the leading social networking site, and consistently beat out main competitor Facebook in traffic. When Facebook launched new features in an effort to attract a variety of users, Myspace found itself in a continuing decline of membership. As of July 2010, the site was ranked 25th in Internet traffic, opposed to the 2nd position held by Facebook (Sony VGP-BPL11 battery) .
The corporate history of Myspace as well as the status of Tom Anderson as a Myspace founder has been a matter of some public dispute.
New design
Throughout 2007 and 2008, Myspace redesigned many of the features of its site in both layout and in function (Sony VGP-BPL15 battery) .
One of the first functions to be redesigned was the user home page, with features such as status updates, applications, and subscriptions being added in order to compete with Facebook. In 2008, the Myspace homepage was redesigned. Myspace Music was redecorated in 2008 and 2009, making it more like a online music store similar to iTunes and Rhapsody, along with the ability to create playlists (Dell Inspiron E1505 battery) .
The use of Playlist.com on Myspace was abolished after the new Myspace music was launched. Some of the classic features of Myspace music, such as the artist directory, were also abolished.
On March 10, 2010, Myspace had some new features added like recommendation engine for new users which suggests games, music and videos based on their previous search habits (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .
The security on Myspace was also accounted to, with the criticism of Facebook, to make it a safer site. The security of Myspace enables users to choose if the content could be viewed for Friends Only, 18 and older, or Everyone. The website will also release several mobile micro applications for Myspace gamers besides sending them games alerts. The site may release 20 to 30 micro apps and go mobile next year (HP Pavilion dv6000 Battery) .
In Summer 2010, the color scene of Myspace changed. The classic blue has been replaced by a more white interface, to resemble the look and feel of Facebook, and to attract users of Facebook to join or rejoin Myspace. The simplication of the navigation bar also made it easier to find features quickly (Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31S battery) .
In August 2010, the home page was modified to give new room for the Myspace Stream and to make it resemble Facebook further. Profile 3.0 was launched as well, which was an upgrade from profile 2.0. That enabled users to have more creativity with a simpler interface. Templates, like profile 2.0, are added too but it also enabled simpler template creation methods and module control (Sony VGN-FZ31S battery) .
Building templates has become simpler; without the use of custom HTML or CSS, users can upload photos from their computer or find background images on the internet by typing a URL, to give it more of a personal, more sentimental and individualist image than the prepackaged layout sites that were used before. HTML and CSS can be still used on the profile, but an HTML or CSS module must be added to promote a neater layout but still use the sponsored layout sites (Hp pavilion dv6000 battery) .
In September 2010, Myspace continued to work on improving the website. A photos section was added and the Fotoflexer app was added to photos. Myspace also enabled users to integrate their Myspace activity to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, to attract and show others that they are still on Myspace and to bring users back to Myspace. Myspace Movies was also added to promote movies and movie related media (SONY VGN-FZ38M Battery) .
New image
On October 27, 2010, Myspace introduced a beta version of a new site design on a limited scale, with plans to switch all interested users to the new site in late November. Chief executive Mike Jones said the site is no longer competing with Facebook as a general social networking site. Instead, Myspace would be music-oriented and would target younger people (SONY VGN-FZ31z Battery) .
Jones believed most younger users would continue to use the site after the redesign, though older users might not. The goal of the redesign is to increase the number Myspace of users and how long they spend there. On October 26, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said, "Most investors have written off MySpace now," and he was unsure whether the changes would help the company recover (SONY VGN-FZ31E Battery) .
New logo design
A report in October 2010 at Techcrunch.com detailed Myspace's debut of a new logo. The "My" portion appears in a different font, while the part previously occupied by the word "Space" was replaced by a simple underline mark, representing a blank "space". This logo has been implanted on Myspace's website since November 11 (SONY VGN-FZ31J Battery) .
Revenue model
Myspace operates solely on revenues generated by advertising as its user model possesses no paid-for features for the end user.Through its Web site and affiliated ad networks, Myspace is second only to Yahoo! in its capacity to collect data about its users and thus in its ability to use behavioral targeting to select the ads each visitor sees (SONY VGN-FZ31M Battery) .
On August 8, 2006, search engine Google signed a $900 million deal to provide a Google search facility and advertising on Myspace.Myspace has proven to be a windfall for many smaller companies that provide widgets or accessories to the social networking giant. Companies such as Slide.com, RockYou!, and YouTube were all launched on Myspace as widgets providing additional functionality to the site (SONY VGN-FZ31B Battery) .
Other sites created layouts to personalize the site and made hundreds of thousands of dollars for its owners most of whom were in their late teens and early twenties.
In November 2008, Myspace announced that user-uploaded content that infringed on copyrights held by MTV and its subsidiary networks would be redistributed with advertisements that would generate revenue for the companies (SONY VGP-BPS13 Battery) .
Despite losing popularity to Facebook and Twitter in recent months, Rupert Murdoch has no plans to sell off Myspace, nor to buy out Twitter. Murdoch gave the site his personal support, while feeling that Twitter has yet to find a way to make money on its own. However, in 2009, Myspace also added a new status update feature (Dell Inspiron 1320 Battery) .
If a Myspace user has a Twitter account, the tweet will also update the Myspace status. (Facebook also has a similar feature.) It does, however, require that the two accounts be synched up together.
Contents of a Myspace profile (Dell Inspiron 1320n Battery)
Moods
Moods are small emoticons that are used to depict a mood the user is in. The feature was added in July 2007. The mood feature as of 2010 is not included by default with the status updates, but could be shared on the homepage as a separate updated.
Blurbs, blogs, multimedia
Profiles contain two standard "blurbs": "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" sections. Profiles also contain an "Interests" section and a "Details" section (Dell Inspiron 1464 Battery) .
In the "Details" section, "Status" and "Zodiac Sign" fields will always display. However, fields in these sections will not be displayed if members do not fill them in. Profiles also contain a blog with standard fields for content, emotion, and media. Myspace also supports uploading images (Dell Inspiron 1564 Battery) .
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. A photo editor powered by Fotoflexer is available which can not only crop images and adjust contrast but also convert the image to a cartoon or a line drawing made with neon lights, or put the user's face in a photo of a $100 bill (Dell Inspiron 1764 Battery) .
Flash, such as on MySpace's video service, can be embedded. Blogging features are also available. These features could be hidden on a profile by using the module customizer or using HTML/CSS codes. Photos could be displayed on the Myspace profile instead of a link that it was used in previous years. Photos can be made into a slide show (Dell Studio 1450 Battery) .
Comments
Below the User's Friends Space (by default) is the "comments" section, wherein the user's friends may leave comments for all viewers to read. Myspace users have the option to delete any comment or require all comments to be approved before posting. If a user's account is deleted, every comment left on other profiles by that user will be deleted, and replaced with the comment saying "This Profile No Longer Exists" (Dell Studio 1457 Battery) .
The option of using HTML in comments could be enabled or disabled.
Profile customization (HTML/CSS)
Myspace allows users to customize their user profile pages by entering HTML (but not JavaScript) into such areas as "About Me", "I'd Like to Meet", and "Interests". Videos and flash-based content can be included this way. Users also have the option to add music to their profile pages via Myspace Music, a service that allows bands to post songs for use on Myspace (Dell Latitude D610 Battery) .
A user can also change the general appearance of his or her page by entering CSS (in a <style> ... </style> element) into one of these fields to override the page's default style sheet using Myspace editors. This is often used to tweak fonts and colors. The fact that the user-added CSS is located in the middle of the page (rather than being located in the <head> element) means that the page will begin to load with the default Myspace layout before abruptly changing to the custom layout (Toshiba NB100 Battery) .
A special type of modification is a div overlay, where the default layout is dramatically changed by hiding default text with <div> tags and large images.
There are several independent web sites offering Myspace layout design utilities which let a user select options and preview what their page will look like with them (Toshiba Satellite M65 battery) .
In 2008, Myspace launched a new Profile 2.0 as the next generation of the Myspace profile. Profile 2.0 features a cleaner interface and the ability to hide or show modules of the profile, along with customize the position of the module on the profile. Profile 2.0 layouts were released on the internet quickly as the use of the classic Myspace layouts do not work with profile 2.0. Profile 2.0 also was criticized for not looking right when trying to add custom CSS (Toshiba Satellite M60 battery) .
To add custom CSS, the original theme has to be scrapped and many Myspace tweaks were not functional in the Profile 2.0 layout. In 2010, Myspace abandoned the Profile 1.0 layout and made Profile 2.0 the standard features of the profile. That promoted a cleaner interface and many themes are prepackaged with the customizer, along with the make a custom theme using various parameters of profile editing (Dell Latitude D830 Battery) .
Applications are used for decoration. While Profile 2.0 is the standard layout, a new profile was launch as an optional upgrade. The new profile was launched to keep up with the trends of the modern profile interface and gives it a more mature and simpler design. Profile 3.0 enables users more flexible custimization and simpler theme building, but is not much different than the Profile 2.0 interface (Dell Studio 1735 Battery) .
Music
Myspace profiles for musicians in the website's Myspace Music section differ from normal profiles in allowing artists to upload their entire discographies consisting of MP3 songs. The uploader must have rights to use the songs (e.g. their own work, permission granted, etc.). Unsigned musicians can use Myspace to post and sell music using SNOCAP, which has proven popular among Myspace users (Dell Latitude D620 Battery) .
Shortly after Myspace was sold to Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News and 20th Century Fox, in 2005, they launched their own record label, MySpace Records, in an effort to discover unknown talent currently on Myspace Music.Regardless of the artist already being famous or still looking for a break into the industry, artists can upload their songs onto Myspace and have access to millions of people on a daily basis (Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Battery) .
Some well known singers such as Lily Allen and Sean Kingston gained fame through Myspace. The availability of music on this website continues to develop, largely driven by young talent. Over eight million artists have been discovered by Myspace and many more continue to be discovered daily. In late 2007, the site launched The Myspace Transmissions, a series of live-in-studio recordings by well-known artists (Sony VGN-FW11S Battery) .
Myspace, in 2008, redesigned its music page adding new features for all musicians. These new features include the users' ability to create playlists, resembling the functions of Last.fm and other social music websites, along with the popular ProjectPlaylist that is popular on profiles. The new music features also archive songs from many popular artists, resembling the services of iTunes and Napster (Sony VGN-FW11M Battery) .
In March 2010, listening to the full song in the search results has been disable and had been replaced by 30 second samples. Myspace music also suggests songs based on the songs you are currently listening to or the songs you had added to the playlist, making it as a music discovery tool. Myspace Music also added an improved playlist feature and artist profile, along with better music suggestion features, making it one of the highest rated and advanced music discovery sites on the Web (Dell Studio 1555 battery) .
The site features charts similar to Billboard charts and it keeps track of the most popular music liked by users of all genres. It also enables user to view popular music in other countries of the world, mostly in Europe and major Asian countries such as China and Russia. That helped promote international music throughout the globe, globalizing the music scene easier than before. The site also enables users to discover new songs and albums, to get the cutting edge with new music (Dell Latitude E5400 Battery) .
Myspace features
Bulletins
Bulletins are posts that are posted on to a "bulletin board" for everyone on a Myspace user's friends list to see. Bulletins can be useful for contacting an entire friends list without resorting to messaging users individually. They have also become the primary attack point for phishing. Bulletins are deleted after ten days (Dell Latitude E4200 Battery) .
Groups
Myspace has a Groups feature which allows a group of users to share a common page and message board. Groups can be created by anybody, and the moderator of the group can choose for anyone to join, or to approve or deny requests to join (Dell Vostro A840 Battery) .
MySpaceIM
Main article: MySpaceIM
In early 2006, Myspace introduced MySpaceIM, an instant messenger that uses one's Myspace account as a screen name. A Myspace user logs in to the client using the same e-mail associated with his or her Myspace account. Unlike other parts of MySpace, MySpaceIM is stand-alone software for Microsoft Windows (Dell Inspiron 300M Battery) .
Users who use MySpaceIM get instant notification of new Myspace messages, friend requests, and comments. MySpaceIM was added as an default feature of Myspace by the end of 2009.
MySpaceTV (video)
In early 2007, Myspace introduced MySpaceTV, a service similar to the YouTube video sharing website. Myspace has been showing videos as early as 2006, but it has changed it name to MySpaceTV for a while (Dell Studio 1737 battery) .
In 2009, MySpaceTV has reverted back to Myspace Video once again. MySpsce video continues to be not as popular as other video sharing sites such as YouTube, but many sites had partnered with Myspace such as Hulu to promote their media to the Myspace community.
Applications
In 2008, Myspace introduced an API with which users could create applications for other users to post on their profiles (Dell Inspiron E1505 battery) .
The applications are similar to the Facebook applications. In May 2008, Myspace had added some security options regarding interaction with photos and other media. Many applications that are popular on Myspace had spin off versions on Facebook. The Myspace app Mafia Wars has became a Facebook sensation as well (Dell Latitude E6400 battery) .
On the other hand, Facebook applications such as Bumper Stickers and Farmville has been used in Myspace and was popular as well. Many application partnerships such as Zygna and Slide has been responsible from creating third party apps for use on both Myspace and Facebook, along with for use in the iTunes app store (Dell RM791 battery) .
MySpace Mobile
There are a variety of environments in which users can access Myspace content on their mobile phone. American mobile phone provider Helio released a series of mobile phones in early 2006 that can utilize a service known as Myspace Mobile to access and edit one's profile and communicate with, and view the profiles of, other members Additionally, UIEvolution and Myspace developed a mobile version of Myspace for a wider range of carriers, including AT&T, Vodafone and Rogers Wireless (Dell XPS M1530 battery) .
Myspace News
In the month of April 2007, Myspace launched a news service called Myspace News which displays news from RSS feeds that users submit. It also allows users to rank each news story by voting for it. The more votes a story gets, the higher the story moves up the page (Dell XPS M2010 battery) .
Myspace Classifieds
Full service classifieds listing offered beginning in August 2006. It has grown by 33 percent in one year since inception. Myspace Classifieds was launched right at the same time the site appeared on the internet (Dell Vostro 1000 battery) .
Myspace Karaoke
Launched April 29, 2008, ksolo.myspace.com is a combination of Myspace and kSolo, which allows users to upload audio recordings of themselves singing onto their profile page. Users' friends are able to rate the performances. A video feature is not yet available, but Tom Anderson, Myspace co-founder and president, states that it is in the works (Acer Aspire One battery) .
Myspace Polls
Myspace Polls is a feature on Myspace that was brought back in 2008 to enable users to post polls on their profile and share them with other users.
MySpace forums
MySpace uses an implementation of Telligent Community for its forum system (Toshiba Satellite P10 Battery) .
Politics
- During the 2008 presidential election in the United States, candidates set up Myspace profiles, presumably in an effort to attract younger voters. Most profiles feature photos, blogs, videos, and ways for viewers to get involved with campaigning. Myspace features these politicians' profiles on its front page in the "Cool New People" section, on what appears to be a random rotation (SONY VGN-FZ210CE Battery) .
- Many political organizations have created Myspace accounts to keep in touch with and expand their membership base. These range from larger organizations like the John Birch Society and theACLU to smaller locally focused environmentalist groups and Food Not Bombs activists (Dell Precision M70 Battery) .
Accessibility and reliability
Because most Myspace pages are designed by individuals with little HTML experience, a very large proportion of pages do not satisfy the criteria for valid HTML or CSS laid down by the W3C. Poorly formatted code can cause accessibility problems for those using software such as screen readers (Toshiba Satellite L305 Battery) .
The Myspace home page, as of May 20, 2009, fails HTML validation with around 101 errors (the number changes on sequential validations of the home page due to dynamic content), using the W3C's validator.
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 are not covered up by CSS or using other means (Toshiba Satellite T4900 Battery) .
As Myspace users are usually not skilled web developers, this can cause further 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 (sometimes multiple videos and sound files are automatically played at the same time when a profile loads) (Toshiba PA3399U-2BRS battery) .
While Myspace blocks potentially harmful code (such as JavaScript) from profiles, users have occasionally found ways to insert such code. PC Worldcited this as its main reason for naming Myspace as #1 in its list of twenty-five worst web sites ever.
In addition, new features have been gradually added (see featuritis) (Toshiba Satellite A200 Battery) .
Security
In October 2005, a flaw in MySpace's site design was exploited by "Samy" to create the first self-propagating cross-site scripting (XSS) worm. MSNBC has reported that "social-networking sites like Myspace are turning out to be hotbeds for spyware," and "infection rates are on the rise, in part thanks to the surging popularity of social-networking sites like MySpace.com (Toshiba Satellite 1200 Battery) ."
In addition to this, the customization of user pages currently allows the injection of certain HTML which can be crafted to form a phishing user profile, thus keeping the myspace.com domain as the address.More recently, there has been spam on bulletins that has been the result of phishing (Toshiba Satellite M300 Battery) .
Users find their Myspace homepage with bulletins they didn't post, realizing later they had been phished. The bulletin consists of an advertisement that provides a link to a fake login screen, tricking people into typing in their Myspace e-mail and password.
Other security fears regarding profile content itself are also present (Dell Latitude XT2 Tablet PC Battery) .
For example, the embedding of videos inherently allows all of the format's abilities and functions to be used on a page. A prime example of this surfaced in December 2006, when embedded QuickTime videos were shown to contain hyperlinks to JavaScript files, which would be run simply by a user visiting a 'phished' profile page, or even in some cases by simply viewing a user's 'about me' elsewhere on the site (Toshiba Portege 335CT Battery) .
Users who entered their login information into a fake login bar that appeared would also become 'phished', and their account would be used to spam other members, thus spreading this security problem.
Myspace's anti-phishing and anti-spam measures have also come under fire (Dell Vostro A90 Battery) .
In 2007 Myspace made changes such that external links on profiles would be redirected through the http://msplinks.com domain. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org would be changed to http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZW4ud2lraXBlZGlhLm9yZw==. (The new links are determined by Base64 encoding, as there are ways of decoding the link back into its original URL. (Toshiba Satellite P15 Battery) )
Myspace staffers would be able to disable potentially dangerous links. (The changed links only work if the HTTP referrer is a Myspace page; otherwise, the link will appear to be disabled.) This move has been criticized that it makes profile editing inconvenient and that it does nothing to deter spammers (Toshiba Satellite Pro M10 Battery) .
In February 2008 Myspace changed the system such that users who click such links (except for whitelisted domains like Wikipedia and YouTube) will receive a warning that they will be leaving the myspace.com domain. As of March 2008, this "feature" has been extended to blogs as well, although previous blog entries are unaffected unless the user updates them (Toshiba Portege 3110 Battery) .
In January 2008 the state attorneys general of 49 states of the USA wrote guidelines for online safety for Myspace and other services. They included restrictions for behavior on social networking services.
On January 26, 2008, over 567,000 private Myspace user pictures were downloaded from the site by using a bug published on YouTube and put on the Piratebay torrent site for download (Toshiba Portege R600 Battery) .
Myspace party problems
Myspace is often used as a venue for publicizing parties, sometimes with the host's knowledge and sometimes without. There have been some well-publicized incidents where Myspace parties have caused thousands of dollars damage to property, and even (in at least one case) loss of life (Toshiba Satellite 1900 Battery) .
- A party hosted by Corey Worthington, a sixteen-year-old boy from Narre Warren in Melbourne, Australia, and advertised on MySpace, attracted 500 people. Police cars were attacked, and the dog squad and a helicopter were called in. The incident received international coverage (Toshiba Portege R200 Battery) .
- (Worthington subsequently found work as a party promoter, and appeared on the Ten Network's Australian version of Big Brother.) The Sydney Morning Herald's online technology writer, Asher Moses, has noted that MySpace/Facebook parties are particularly prone to gatecrashing because news of events can spread to uninvited guests via "newsfeeds." He suspects some party hosts are oblivious to the actual number of people who get the message (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ21m Battery) ."
- In April 2007, a seventeen-year-old British girl hosted a party after distributing information about it on Myspace that was reportedly subtitled "Let's trash the average family-sized house disco party." Her parents were left with an approximately £24,000 ($48,000) bill from police (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ18m Battery) .
- Allen Joplin, a seventeen-year-old American high school student from Seattle, was shot dead at a party that had been publicized through Myspace.
Child safety
The minimum age to register an account on Myspace is 13, but it was 14 at one time and some still think of it as being 14 (Dell Vostro A90 Battery) .
Profiles with ages set from 13 to 15 years are automatically private. Users whose ages are set at 16 or over have the option to set their profile to public viewing. Accessing the full profile of, or messaging someone when their account is set to "private" (or if under sixteen) is restricted to a Myspace user's direct friends (Dell Vostro A860 Battery) .
Myspace will delete fake profiles if the victim verifies their identity and points out the profile via e-mail. In July 2007, the company found and deleted 29,000 profiles belonging to registered sex offenders.
Recently, Myspace has been the focus of a number of news reports stating that teenagers have found ways around the restrictions set by Myspace (Dell Vostro 2510 Battery) .
Stricter methods for enforcing age admission will be enforced in the future, such as blocking a person from accessing Myspace using a computer's IP address.In response, Myspace has given assurances to parents that the website 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 13 to 15 years as friends unless they already know the user's full name or email address (Dell Vostro 1700 Battery) .
Some third party Internet safety companies such as Social Shield have launched online communities for parents concerned about their child's safety on Myspace.
In June 2006, sixteen-year-old American Katherine Lester flew to the Middle East, to Tel Aviv, Israel, after having tricked her parents into getting her a passport in order to be with a twenty-year-old man she met through Myspace (Dell Vostro 1400 Battery) .
U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded the teen to turn around and go home.
In October 2006, thirteen-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide after being the victim of cyber-bullying instigated by the mother of a friend who had posed as a sixteen-year-old named "Josh Evans" (HP Pavilion DV7 Battery) .
In December 2006, Myspace announced new measures to protect children from known sex offenders. Although precise details were not given they said that "tools" would be implemented to prevent known sex offenders from the USA creating a Myspace profile.
In February 2007, a U.S. District Judge in Texas dismissed a case when a family sued MySpace for negligence, fraud, and misrepresentation (HP Pavilion dv9000 battery) ;
a girl in the family had been sexually assaulted by a man she met through MySpace, after she had misrepresented her age as 18 when she was 13. Regarding his dismissal of the case, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks wrote: "If anyone had a duty to protect young girls, it was her parents, not MySpace (Dell Vostro 1000 battery) ."
In October 2007, a study published in the Journal of Adolescence conducted by Sameer Hinduja (Florida Atlantic University) and Justin W. Patchin (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) concluded that most adolescents use Myspace responsibly: "When considered in its proper context, these results indicate that the problem of personal information disclosure on Myspace may not be as widespread as many assume, and that the overwhelming majority of adolescents are responsibly using the website," they say (Dell INSPIRON 1525 battery) .
Social and cultural
Dave Itzkoff, in the June 2006 Playboy magazine, related his experiences of experimentation with membership in Myspace. Among his other criticisms, one pertains to the distance afforded by the Internet that emboldens members, such as females who feature photos of themselves in scant clothing on their profile pages or behave in ways they would not in person, and he indicated that this duplicity undercuts the central design of MySpace, namely, to bring people together (HP Pavilion DV4 Battery) .
Itzkoff also referenced the addictive, time-consuming nature of the site, mentioning that the Playboy Playmate and Myspace member Julie McCullough, who was the first to respond to his add-friend request, pointedly referred to the site as "cybercrack". Itzkoff argued 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 (Sony Vaio P battery) .
Furthermore, in terms of MySpace's potential for underhanded commercial exploitation, 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) was found to be a solicitation for a series of commercial porn sites (ACER TRAVELMATE 4400 battery) .
Itzkoff is similarly critical of the more subtle commercial solicitations on the site, such as the banner ads and links to profiles and video clips that turn out to be, for example, commercials for new 20th Century Fox films. He also observed that MySpace’s much-celebrated music section is heavily weighted in favor of record labels rather than breakthrough musicians (ACER TRAVELMATE 2410 battery) .
In relating criticism from another person, whom Itzkoff called "Judas," he illustrated that, while the goal of attempting to bring together people who might not otherwise associate with one another in real life may seem honorable, Myspace inherently violates a social contract only present when people interact face-to-face, rendering, in his opinion, the website nothing more than a passing fad (ACER TRAVELMATE 4500 battery) :
| “ | 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, adding, and gawking at the same alarming photos as an army of fourteen year olds, and quick as deer, they’ll dash to the next trend. And before you know it, we’ll all follow. | ” |
Controversy over corporate history
After the sale of Myspace to News Corp, Brad Greenspan (the former CEO, founder, and shareholder of Intermix Media the parent company that owned and launched MySpace.com) contested the sell of the company to News Corp (ACER ASPIRE 1360 battery) .
Greenspan claimed that new Intermix Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt and other board members cheated shareholders by selling the company for less than it was actually worth.Valleywag, a gossip blog that reported on the allegations, also claimed that founder and public face of MySpace, Tom Anderson, was a public relations invention.It was later confirmed by Newsweek that Anderson's age on the site had been lowered to "appeal" to younger users (ACER ASPIRE 3020 battery) .
In October 2006, Greenspan published "The Myspace Report" on a personal website, calling for government investigation into News Corp's acquisition of Myspace.Greenspan's main allegation is that News Corp. should have valued Myspace at US$20 billion rather than US$327 million, and had defrauded Intermix shareholders through an unfair deal process (ACER TRAVELMATE 2300 battery) .
However the report was not widely accepted by the financial press and a lawsuit led by Greenspan challenging the acquisition was dismissed by a judge.
Censorship
Activist group MoveOn.org has criticized MySpace, claiming that the website practices censorship by not showing anti-media ads, removing fake profiles for high-profile media executives like Rupert Murdoch, and attempting to force users away from using certain third-party Flash applications on their profiles, a move necessary to improve site security (ACER ASPIRE 5020 battery) .
Stalking
According to Alison Kiss, program director for Security on Campus, social networking websites such as Myspace and Facebook have made it easier for stalkers who target women on college campuses (sony vgp-bpl9 battery) .
MySpace China
See also: Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
The simplified Chinese version of MySpace, launched in April 2007, has many censorship-related differences from other international versions of the service. Discussion forums on topics such as religion and politics are absent, and a filtering system that prevents the posting of content about Taiwan independence, the Dalai Lama, Falun Gong, and other "inappropriate topics" has been added (Dell INSPIRON E1505 battery) .
Users are also given the ability to report the "misconduct" of other users for offenses including "endangering national security, leaking state secrets, subverting the government, undermining national unity, and spreading rumors or disturbing the social order (SONY VAIO VGN-FZ31M Battery) ."
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