What is MySpace?
 MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive,
user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups,
photos, music, and videos. MySpace also features an internal search
engine and an internal e-mail system. It is headquartered in Santa
Monica, California whilst its parent company is headquartered in
New York City. According to Alexa Internet, it is currently the world's
fourth most popular English-language website and the sixth most popular
website in any language[1]. It is the most popular website in the
United States, accounting for 4.46 percent of all Internet visits
(note it is possible that other websites have a greater number of
unique visitors). MySpace has gradually gained more popularity
than
similar websites to achieve nearly 80 percent of visits to online
social networking websites]. It has become an increasingly influential
part of contempory popular culture, especially in the Anglosphere.
MySpace has 300 employees, is owned by News Corporation, and
does not disclose revenues or profits separately from News Corporation.
MySpace currently reports just over 107 million accounts, with
the 100 millionth account being created on August 9, 2006
reportedly attracting new registrations at the rate of 230,000
per day.
The creators of MySpace have hosted many concerts
and parties throughout the United States to support the website.
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
Contents of a MySpace profile
Blurbs, Interests, Details, Blog, Images, and Videos
 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. However, fields in the "Interests" and "Details" sections
have the ability of not being displayed on the page by simply not
filling them in. 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 via the MySpace Videos service, that are played via
a standalone Flash player.
User's Friends Space
 The User's Friends Space contains a count of a user's friends, a "Top
Friends" area, and a link to view all of the user's friends.
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 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, or 24 friends to be displayed
in the "Top Friends" area. The "Top Friends" feature
is known to cause problems among MySpace users. Users often complain
about not being on a someone else's "Top Friends" list,
not being ranked high up enough on the list, or having trouble deciding
who to put on their list and in what position. MySpace currently
does not have an option to disable the "Top Friends" feature
to combat this. The "Top Friends" feature is parodied in
The Myspace Movie.
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. 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.
Profile customization
 MySpace allows users to modify their user pages. Although JavaScript
is not allowed, HTML/XHTML and CSS can be used to change the vast
majority of the profile to the 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 onto 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.
MySpace features
Bulletins
 Bulletins are messages that are sent out to everyone on a MySpace
user's friends list. Bulletins can be useful for notifying an entire
friends list, without resorting to messaging users individually.
Bulletins often contain surveys and chain bulletins.
Most surveys are spread via the bulletin system. Sometimes, surveys
will be posted in one's blog. Much like surveys in real life, the
surveys on MySpace are large questionnaires which reveal personal
information about the user taking the survey. Although MySpace already
provides organized space to tell a profile reader about a user's
life, surveys are still widely popular in the MySpace community.
Many websites exist just to offer surveys to MySpace users, like
SurveyMachine.
Chain bulletins are bulletins that are constantly reposted. Chain
bulletins are usually re-posts of chain e-mails, fake games, or superstitious
messages. Many users who are bored will believe this or repost it
out of jest. Chain bulletins are parodied in The MySpace Movie.
There is a virus currently affecting MySpace users, creating random
bulletins and replacing them with a user as the maker of it. The
virus is unknown and MySpace is still working to fix this problem.
The symptom of the virus is the appearance of spam bulletins, apparently
created by users who in actual fact know nothing about them, soliciting
visits to anything from websites which simply attempt to trick readers
into revealing their MySpace account access details to websites containing
extreme pornographic material.
Groups
 There are groups that you can join that have people that like the
same things you do. It is like a little club. You can interact with
all the people in your group by going to their profile or lookup.
At times, though, groups advertise by sending messages to random
users, based off of the group thinking the person may be interested.
*Taken from MySpace
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved September
9, 2006.
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