Fox to Purchase Myspace

jagger writes "News Corp announced on Monday that it has bought Intermix Media, owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, for $580 million. This follows an announcement by News Corp on Friday that it is creating an Internet division to hold the company's sports, news and entertainment sites." Update: 07/19 2:40EDT by C :Sorry about the copy errors, folks. They have been fixed.

Comments

Fixed link

[Anonymous Coward]

Click

In other news...

[PortWineBoy]

always use that pesky "preview" button.

Re:In other news...

[donutz]

always use that pesky "preview" button.

Is that bit of advice for regular Slashdot readers or for the Slashdot editors?

Re:In other news...

[Vaevictis666]

also, don't replace verbs with a comma.

Re:In other news...

[infonography]

'Preview' is for Users (typos)
'Older Stuff' is for editors. (Dups)

nice work

[reidconti]

ha-ha.

linkage

[UnderScan]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4695495.stm

Nice job editors...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you even READ these articles?

Re:Nice job editors...

[Anonymous Coward]

(-1, You Must Be New Here)

Re:Nice job editors...

[dgatwood]

Ob. Monty Python: The people responsible for sacking the copy editors have been sacked.

Fox owns me?

[krautcanman]

I typically don't have anything wrong with Fox, but to allow them access to my personal information? I don't think so...

Re:Fox owns me?

[bombadillo]

I wouldn't trust them to be "fair and balanced" with my personal information either....

Re:Fox owns me?

[Anonymous Coward]

what personal info?
im on myspace and never entered anything remotely personal like address or phone numbers etc.

Re:Fox owns me?

[KinkifyTheNation]

Right, and just about everything else you enter is publically available anyways.

Re:Fox owns me?

[dunng808]

Could be fodder for new Fox reality shows, something to jump-start the writers.

Re:Fox owns me?

[digitalgroove]

If not Fox than someone else. Your personal information and the illusion of its safety are simply running into the reality of the corporate world. If you don't like it, don't use the service. It's plain and simple: $$ talks...

Fixed Article Link

[griboyedov]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4695495.stm

Honestly

[BlackCobra43]

Is it THAT hard to check your submission for broken code?

Re:Honestly

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is it THAT hard to check your submission for broken code?"

Also, is it that hard for the editors to add a pointed bracket and a closing tag? It's because of these glaring errors, dupes, etc. that people won't subscribe to Slashdot. The editors just aren't that interested in doing their jobs, it seems.

That makes....

[puppetman]

no sense.

Was Zonk out on a bender last night?

Re:That makes....

[PakProtector]

Yes, Zonk was, indeed, out on a Bender last night. Also present were Fry and Leela, who declined to comment other than saying, "Zonk's just zis guy, you know?"

duhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

My name is George, and I know HTML.

Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I have to boycott them

Nice hyperlink

[Anonymous Coward]

gj with the hyperlink

Tpyo

[JorenDahn]

"a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4695495. stm">News Corp announced on Monday that

Whoopsies, giant typo.

Re:Tpyo

[ChrisBennett]

the keys are like right next to each other

Re:Tpyo

[toddestan]

Actually, it's not a big typo. Only the very first character from the post is missing, a "<" - which of course broke the hyperlink. Probably someone copied this blurb from somewhere else and pasted it into the submission form, not using the Preview button. Then the editors didn't check the submission before allowing it go to the front page.

Being that this slashdot, I find that an entirely plausible scenario.

Re:Tpyo

[Anonymous Coward]

in this case it's more like the keys are like way far apart and stuff

Uh-oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet my profile's gonna be de-listed when they find out I'm part of some Anti-Bush groups.

When will they broadcast on the internet?

[hiss]

It will be great when they start broadcasting the sports they have rights to on the net. Sports is one of the biggest drivers in HDTV and would be a huge driver in Internet tv as well.

Waste

[Anonymous Coward]

What a waste of money.

ok...

[rainmayun]

have the moderators been replaced by a drinking bird that just clicks "Post"???

Re:ok...

[Nytewynd]

Uh oh. The Springfield Power Plant didn't last very long like that. How will /. survive?

Re:ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Miss Doesn't Find Me Sexually Attractive Any More, I just tripled my productivity!

Re:ok...

[EvilMidnightBomber]

..drinking bird..
Soooo close! The drinking bird theory was an inside joke spread by the /. editing team to describe Zonk, the narcoleptic who just happens to sit with his nose aligned with the enter key. Witness the moniker, baby.

Re:ok...

[noidentity]

And if so, could I get one of those drinking birds to click refresh on the Slashdot homepage for me? It'd really boost my productivity.

Re:ok...

[cortana]

The drinking bird broke last week. The system has been modernised by switching to using yes(1).

Good Job!

[Anonymous Coward]

a

href="nice">editting.

Re:Good Job!

[bersl2]

I know Taco has said that the choice of the word "editors" to describe the editors was a bad decision, but if you don't pick up on and fix a mistake like this, that's just plain negligence.

Re:Good Job!

[Anonymous Coward]

rabble rabble rabble!

Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular site?

[garcia]

Proper link:

It has bought Intermix Media, owner of Myspace.com, the fifth most-viewed internet domain in the US and owner of other sites for $580m.

When I saw this on Google News this morning, I was shocked to know that there was a domain out there that I have never visited yet it's the fifth most popular out there.

Why would other people be going to such a large site but not me? When I checked it out this morning I realized that it's nothing more than a "good looking" spam webportal.

Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[Nurseman]

And will MySpace become fair and balanced ? :-)

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[sponga]

No, it will still be "the most ridiculous item of the day"

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[linzeal]

Considering that most MySpace users I know are college freshman maintaining online friendships with chums out of town and that they are all left wing this will be interesting.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[PaxTech]

Fox isn't necessarily right-wing. They just found an underserved section of the market and filled it. From what I understand, in China the Rupert Murdoch owned TV stations are the most pro-communist government leaning, because that's the viewpoint that was underserved in that market. It's just good business.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There's not a whole lot of contradiction between being pro-Chinese-communist-government and the kind of spin Fox News pushes in the US, actually.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[linzeal]

So they are pro status quo that is even worse. Without the formation of dissent allowed with freedom of speech in any form of government that allows it the ideals of a citizen become narrow and focused on a majority idealogy usually run by some sort of religious fundamentalism. I would consider maoism a religion.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[Seumas]

I used to think LiveJournal was the shithole of the internet. How I've realized it's more like the taint. MySpace is more like the shithole. I think it's hilarious that all the douchebags that create these "look at me and how cool I am!" pages filled with a thousand animations and background sounds and wav files and ridiculous background images and pretentions photos of themselves and their "friends" are now going to be contributing to the pockets of Rupert Murdoch.

That it made half a billion dollars just goes to show that you don't need a brilliant idea to become rich on the internet. You just need to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Christ, I can't believe the hamster dance site didn't sell for ten billion dollars, since every git in the world got off on it.

More importantly, whatever happened to building and running a website or internet/computer service for the enjoyment of it? It seems like everyone (including slashdot) just build up websites, attract lots of people and then sell it off. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, but... WHY?!

I've been offered significant amounts of cash (not millions though) to sell my auction site which I've operated for more than six years. Could I take the money, give up the site and go buy a house with it? Sure. But I don't run the site for money. I dont' charge anything for the site. I don't make anything from the site. And I'm not about to sell the community out for some cash to a bunch of people who will commercialize it (because why would you pay a bunch of money for a site unless you were going to commercialize it?).

It's depressing that the internet has just become a cashcow of half-assed ideas. Do it for the love or don't do it at all.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[minus_273]

right because communism is righ wing now. sheesh. tell that to all those leftists who have been advocating it for so long.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[PaxTech]

They're not pro-status-quo. They're pro-making-money. If there weren't a ton of media outlets that slam the status quo they'd be doing that instead, because that would be the underserved market.

Don't you see that Fox *is* dissenting? They dissent from the prevailing media atmosphere, whatever that is. because that's where the money is. They have no ideology beyond making money. It's more than you can say for the BBC or CNN.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

most pro-communist government leaning,

Right, so Rupert Murdoch is a fascist and a big control freak. He supports whatever group allows him the most power. In the US, he supports Bush. In China, he supports the Communists. There's really no disconnect here.

There's nothing new here.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[PaxTech]

Wrong. He's a big *money* freak. If running a capitalist promoting station in China and a communist one in the US was the way to make the most money, then that's what he'd do.

It's not about ideology, it's about ratings, and it's only about ratings because ratings = profit. Have you seen FoxNews ratings vs. CNN lately? That Murdoch is a hell of a businessman. ;)

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Don't you see that Fox *is* dissenting?

I'll disagree with some of your points. They simply take the prevailing media atmosphere to an extreme. They refined the process, focus on stories better, have very good marketing, and run with it. Because you're right-- that's where the money is.

CNN has never been liberal. The liberal news outlets are all pretty darn small, and are constantly flirting with bankruptcy, because that's where the money isn't.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

You're right, it's about money.

But supporting the people in control is often the best way to make money. Dissent is rarely profitable.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been offered significant amounts of cash (not millions though) to sell my auction site which I've operated for more than six years. Could I take the money, give up the site and go buy a house with it? Sure. But I don't run the site for money. I dont' charge anything for the site. I don't make anything from the site. And I'm not about to sell the community out for some cash to a bunch of people who will commercialize it (because why would you pay a bunch of money for a site unless you were going to commercialize it?).

And you didn't negotiate for creative control, a salary, and a buyout so you could continue doing it and get the payout? Moron.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[Seumas]

Yes, because someone wants to buy a website, pay the website creator for it, continue paying them to continue working on it, leave all creative control and decisions to that person... all out of the goodness of their own heart. No ulterior motives at all. No intention to reap money from it or commercialize it.

See. You're maybe missing the point. Doing it and getting paid doesn't make it right to turn your membership into a bunch of money-giving sheep.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[PaxTech]

Of course CNN doesn't seem liberal to you, Mr. EnronHalliburton2004, because you're probably to the left of Castro and Stalin. ;)

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[Ledskof]

Apparently yes. They've already started censoring bulletins at least. A bulletin my SO wrote that only said "fox owns myspace" and had a copy&paste of section TOS 5.c. was deleted. Then after she tried to post a bulletin a few times her account was suspended. After her account was out of suspension she couldn't post any bulletins with both the words "myspace" and "fox" in them. Funny that they email is down for maintenance now :D... I know, that's not fair, everything goes down for maintenance all the time at myspace. Also apparently some people with massive friend lists who also posted bulletins criticizing fox have completely lost their accounts.

I submitted an account cancellation but I have to wait on an email to confirm it. haha.

Re:Will the internet zone now stop "spinning" ?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

I'm not liberal. I'm a moderate. It's just that the rest of the country has moved to the right. :)

And well, I consider Stalin to be the same sort of fascist dictators as Hitler & Pinochet. Castro is a little more tollerant, even if he is a controling fucker.

And Bush, Nixon, etc. come nowhere close to that extreme. I don't agree with what some of the extreme leftists say, and I sometimes defend Bush to (hard to believe).

A new low for Slashdot editors

[mOoZik]

What the hell is it that you guys are responsible for, anyway? Obviously you don't check for dupes, spelling, grammar, relevance of links, and now, you don't even check to see whether or not the blurb even makes sense and if the links therein are functional! It's like watching the Roman Empire of tech/OSS sites crash and burn...

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[DrEldarion]

Why not make some fun out of it, then?

Let's all try and get the most ridiculous things posted. Bad links, messed-up HTML, nonsensical grammar, the works.

Bonus points if you insult an editor in the blurb and they still end up posting it.

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[nomadic]

Damn straight!

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[learn fast]

For those that will read the above post after they change the blurb, I cut and pasted from view source:

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday July 19, @02:26PM
from the murdoch-immediately-propositioned-for-cyber dept.
jagger writes "a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4695495. stm">News Corp announced on Monday that it , owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, for $580 million. This follows an announcement by News Corp on Friday that it is creating an Internet division to hold the company's sports, news and entertainment sites."

Those broken links and html errors were not produced by my copy and pasting process. I can't imagine how even I could be more sloppy, and trust me, that's not good. There's a 'preview' button for comments. Is there one for posts?

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like Zonk is to blame for most of the dupes/bad posts. I say, let's have an old fashioned lynching! Lynch Zonk! (Virtually, of course.)

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[twilight30]

Except the editors are the Visigoths.

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[TopShelf]

It's like watching the Roman Empire of tech/OSS sites crash and burn...

You presume that there was some past in which /. had a more professional standard of editing. Trust me, that isn't the case.

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[sharkey]

If anyone can top the guy who got goatse.cx posted as a front-page article, I will tip my cap to you.

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[Chapium]

I really think the complaints about dupes aren't necessary. Dupes are nice for those of us who just check the site now and then. We are still entertained & and the sky hasnt come crashing down yet.

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[Evangelion]

link?

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[Fishstick]

IIRC, the submission itself did not have a direct link to goatse, but /. referrers were redirected:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_whore

Another technique is to embed a shock site link in a comment that otherwise appears relevant to the discussion, in the hope that unwitting moderators will mod up the post. The Holy Grail of any link troll is to slip a story submission containing a "shock site" link past the Slashdot editors. This situation occurred in July 2003 and June 2004 when disgruntled webmasters configured their servers to redirect to a shock site when the HTTP referrer was Slashdot.

One particular "shock site" which is overwhelmingly preferred to others is Goatse.cx.

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in that case it was SomethingAwful, whose site admin didn't appreciate the Slashdotting.

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought we were doing that already?

Re:A new low for Slashdot editors

[sharkey]

Perhaps that was it. It's a faint memory from way back when, and of course the "editors" yanked it as soon as readers posted about the link behaviour.

New /. poll

[Anonymous Coward]

What was Zonk high on when he hit "submit"?

1) Gasoline
2) Glue
3) Smack
4) Everything
5) Cowboy Neal

Re:New /. poll

[Leroy_Brown242]

I'd get high on Cowboy Neal, but I can't stand the smell.

fix the bad markup

[toby]

Don't you editors read the mails you get complaining about story problems?? Please fix the bad markup in the story summary.

MySpace

[koreaman]

Hopefully someone will convince people how stupid Fox is, and get people to stop using MySpace. Oh, can you imagine it? A world without MySpace?

Re:MySpace

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Hopefully someone will convince people how stupid Fox is,

Rupert Murdock is *far* from stupid, and Fox isn't either. That's what makes them dangerous. They achieve their ultra-right propaganda by cunning punditry, subtle underdogging of (what they consider) "leftists", fast-paced bullshitting and a heavy usage of Goebbels motto: "repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth" (the "fair and balanced" crap).

People who don't know better believe Fox. The same people who think Saddam Hussein somehow was involved in 9/11. That's what makes them dangerous. If they were stupid, it'd be easy to expose them.

and get people to stop using MySpace. Oh, can you imagine it? A world without MySpace?

Uuh, I think the question on many people's minds is: wtf is MySpace? 'nuff said.

Re:MySpace

[FidelCatsro]

Evil , manipulative , monopolistic tendencies ,total lack of ethics and extremely biased

Stupid though , defiantly not

Re:MySpace

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>They achieve their ultra-right propaganda by cunning punditry, subtle underdogging of (what they consider) "leftists", fast-paced bullshitting and a heavy usage of Goebbels motto: "repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth" (the "fair and balanced" crap).

I wouldn't give a shit if they attacked the left.

My personal opinion is that they attack the center--and that is annoying and dangerous for America.

IMHO, issues the mass media appear focused on avoiding:

* the unacceptable decline in the quality of journalism in America, where bias and opinions are shoved down our throats as unbiansed facts and where rational people in the "center" are virtually forced to choose sides between the "left" and "right" radicals based on abortion, gay rights or other carefully designed issue to divide the middle class

* the unacceptable stonewalling regarding non-USA campaign contributions and PAC (paraphrased: "we cannot satisfy the request for info because our database would blow up if we provide the info as required by the freedom of information act", translation: "everyone would shit bricks if people found out which foreigners have American politicians in their pockets")

* fiscally irresponible federal spending that is weakening America by currently having to borrow many billions from other countries including communist China--for example, this damages our ability to pressure them to play fair regarding "fair-trade", currency valuations, North Korea, and so on

* aggressive redistribution of money from middle class to the ultra wealthy

* allowing illegals across our borders, in order to satisfy wealthy campaign contributors who benefit from cheap labor--at the cost of reduced national security and reduced living standards for Americans who actually want those shitty jobs.

* the loss or decline of many benefits the previous generation of American enjoyed such as social security (which we already paid into), veterans benefits, and so on.

* the unacceptable and barely/innaccurately mentioned issues involving electronic voting devices, their security flaws, and documented conflicts of interests that threaten democracy in America ... and the list continues with more issues that outweigh anything you'll see on primetime news or cable news networks

Re:MySpace

[will_die]

The same people who think Saddam Hussein somehow was involved in 9/11.
Since when is Foxnews widly watched by Democrates?
If you go read the full reports(you will need an upper end libary or work in place that gets them) of the companies ask this question the majority of the people think this was the case voted for Kerry or classified themselves as democrates or independants(possibility of not voting). Thoses that classified themselves as Republicans who voted for Bush and believed this was a very small percent.
Now it gets really interesting is when you start comparing the amount with the time line. The number of people who said this was the case increased while the movie "fahrenheit 9/11" was gaining in popularity and hit a near record high after the DVD had been released. It has been dropping since then and as of March was back to the lows.

Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot admins amaze me everytime :)

Nice post, Zonk!

[TopShelf]

jagger writes "a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4695495. stm">News Corp announced on Monday that it , owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, for $580 million. This follows an announcement by News Corp on Friday that it is creating an Internet division to hold the company's sports, news and entertainment sites."

How do bad links get posted on the main page like this? Isn't the subscriber preview feature supposed to help weed out these things?

Being a /. editor has got be the easiest gig on the web. Just copy, paste, post, and...

wait for it...

PROFIT!

Re:Nice post, Zonk!

[BlackCobra43]

Unfortunately, the elusive "???" part is what keeps eluding most editors.

Re:Nice post, Zonk!

[Jerivix]

Step one: Collect underpants!

Step two:

Step Three: Profit!

Re:Nice post, Zonk!

[Anonymous Coward]

Zonk is such a stupid noob.

Re:Nice post, Zonk!

[Anonymous Coward]

ANd just think... You're one of the people paying their bills.

Re:haha

[Mahou]

hahahahaha

Tom talks about the sale

[bunburyist]

Tom talks about the sale Here

Apparently he's one rich dude now!

Re:Tom talks about the sale

[rabbit racer]

that isn't tom. it's another guy named tom who it seems there was a running joke about him being tom. i am unsure if they actually belive him, but considering the pictures he has posted of himself on crewcial in past posts look nothing like the guy who shows up at interviews as tom, i would have to call bullshit on his whole claim. in that post he says all the pictures are a dupe and that the dude is some kid he knew in school, i guess he must let this random dude do his tv interviews and stuff as well.....or wait, no perhaps it could just be some lame dude trying to be funny.

Rediculous

[jambarama]

If is isn't enough to publish dupes everyday, now BROKEN CODE made it onto the front page.

Are you sure that Zonk checked this?

It should read "News Corp announced on Monday that it, owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, for $580 million. This follows an announcement by News Corp on Friday that it is creating an Internet division to hold the company's sports, news and entertainment sites."

Slashdot to Not Improve Story Editing Standards

[ravenspear]

News Corp announced on Monday that it , owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, for $580 million.

CmdrTaco announced on Tuesday that he, founder of the popular Slashdot.org technology site, for the readability level.

Re:Slashdot to Not Improve Story Editing Standards

[gregarican]

Dear Editors,

The hell what say you? Tell me you will.

Signed,
Yoda

Re:Slashdot to Not Improve Story Editing Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like "Clue":
Zach, on the front page, with a bent copy of TECO.

Re:Slashdot to Not Improve Story Editing Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

rofl

Re:Slashdot to Not Improve Story Editing Standards

[sharkey]

In AD 2005, grammar was beginning...
Taco: What, happen?
Zonk: Somebody set up us the blurb!
Timothy: We get POST.
Taco: WHAT !
Timothy: Main browser maximize on.
Taco: Its yuo !
jagger: How are you gentlemen !!
jagger: All your grammar are belong to us.
jagger: You are on the way to Webster's.
Taco: What yuo text !!
jagger: You have no skill to edit make your copy.
jagger: LOLLOLLOLLOLLOL
Timothy: Cmdr !!
Taco: Take of everp 'Backspace' !!
Taco: Yuo no what yuo typ'ing.
Taco: Move ,Backspace'.
Taco: For grate readablility.

NEWS FLASH!

[medix9]

Fair and Balanced hosting?

Worst Post Ever!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I can only guess what the post is actually trying to say, because the poster must have failed English 101. I mean, DAMN! You most likely have a word processor with a spell and grammar checker; might as well use the damn thing.

That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[bigbinc]

Are you telling me that PHP garbage is worth half a billion dollars? What industry am in? Where am I?

This is beyond the internet bubble of the 90s. Beyond the ancient California gold rush. This is like your 14 year old coming up with a highschool project, you coming in back and going, "Wow, honey this science experiment has to be worth several billion dollars, let's market it and sell it to google."

No wonder America is a trillion dollars in debt.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[hyperstation]

coldfusion. and yes, it's crap.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[bigbinc]

Fine, I just naturally assumed it was PHP.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[Duke Machesne]

Well, no, not really.

The site itself isn't worth a shit, it's all the eyeballs that keep clicking in to play flash-games and read about each other's drunken blackouts.

You know, it's Fox's market.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not paying $580M for the site code... they're paying for the access to the millions (?) of members, their personal information, their eyeballs, etc; plus pretty much a promise that there will be visitors to that site for months to come no matter HOW bad they fuck it up, if at all, which means $$$.

On the other hand, I don't know how they expect to regain that half a billion dollars.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[aftk2]

Heh, does that mean we get to assume things about your technical aptitude, now?

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[drpimp]

Check what you are writing about before you post. Are you telling us .cfm file is PHP? Or if you have a URL with domain.com/index.htm? domain.com/index.asp? domain.com/index.cgi? This tells you what server side scripting language is used? You must not be a server admin, you can make .php files to be read as .asp of what ever you want to for that matter. WOW Ignorance at it's best. Like that other guy posted. It's Coldfusion NOT PHP, as YES it's crap. Highly expensive with no benefits. Assumptions are not acceptable and comparison of PHP to Coldfusion is not even right. If you don't like PHP, (IMO it's the best web scripting language just short of Perl) you must be a Winblows guy. Ok. Done venting. .... I think you have a patch waiting for your to install.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[Shag]

On Windows, no less. And yeah, I've gotten some plain-black-on-white-NT-error web pages from there.

I'm pretty amazed that anybody would buy it. On the one hand, I'm a little curious about whether Fox will fix it, but on the other hand, given how annoying/clueless both MySpace and Fox are, I'm sure they'll get along just fine.

And now I have yet another reason to leave. ;)

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[KenBot_314]

Wow...

That rant at the beginning of your post makes no sense...(who said he was a server admin???)
Also: THAT WEBSITE is crap. Not Coldfusion. Saying that a language is bad because of one example of a really badly designed website is very immature.

It really sounds like you have never used coldfusion; its not a perfect language, but it is definately worth taking a look!

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[drpimp]

Actually I used Coldfusion for 2 years before changing to PHP. Yes it was a rant. I would not be calling Coldfusion crap, unless I knew, from experience, that it is. It does have it's place, I will give it that. But I will never use it for a project again.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have to assume; he's already shown us his incompetence.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[Sloppy]

Are you telling me that PHP garbage is worth half a billion dollars?

Hey, I actually use MySpace, and I wish it were as fast or reliable as random PHP garbage. MySpace's only strength is a consequence of Metcalf's Law: there are a lot of people on it. But it flakes out all the time, it's slow, and you have to turn on Javascript because MySpace's creators have forgotten how to hyperlink.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[vertinox]

Well at least now Tom can actually throw a halfway decent Myspace party.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[akuma(x86)]

Technology has nothing to do with it (PHP, Perl, Apache, blah blah blah whatever...). I mean Ebay is one of the most valuable internet sites out there and their interface is pretty piss poor.

What matters is that a LARGE and YOUNG group of people visit the site and therefore you can sell advertisors to that audience. Fox believes that this audience is worth $580 million. If you can attract a similar audience with your website, you could retire very rich.

Re:That garbage worth 580 million dollars?

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't understand business. Stay where you are. Don't crawl out of your hole. You can't spot a goldmine when you fall into one.

News Digital Media...

[Anonymous Coward]

News Corp. tried it before with News Digital Media, headed son by James Murdoch. Hopefully this time around they'll get it right.

Advertisements???

[Danzigism]

I guess now they'll try to get people to watch their shitty programming as well.. Trying to get those youngins to watch Hannity and lame ass Bill O'Reilly... Because we all know that Americans love to be Entertained about politics, instead of educated!!

learning

[chrisxkelley]

Honestly, i do have to ssay that I am on myspace myself. It has actually been a good thing as far as semi-educating people about html, css, etc. I do thing if by some off chance, precalculus was required to make your myspace page look cooler, people would learn that too.

Social Networking is real???

[chia_monkey]

Well...I didn't know what to think of all this social networking when it first came out. I saw it as a "fun" little thing. Some catered to professionals, some to musicians, some to the people who just like to play on the web. I, along with many other people, simply saw it as a fad that wouldn't amount to anything. And now they're getting bought for loads of money? Are we going to have another dot com era?

Re:Social Networking is real???

[Winterblink]

A better question would be, can the IT industry survive another dot com era? :)

Re:Social Networking is real???

[ostiguy]

it does huge traffic with the teenage set, so its value to someone who wants to sell alternative lifestyles to them is likely huge.

ostiguy

Re:Social Networking is real???

[chia_monkey]

You've got a great point here. Some companies have a product or a store and try to drive traffic to their site. These sites have massive traffic flow already, so now all they have to do is sell a product or service.

This could be a new business model. Build a site that simply draws boatloads of traffic. It doesn't matter what the site does...just get the numbers. Once you reach critical mass, research the demographics and find the best fit of a product or service to sell. Hmmmm...

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

News Corp announced on Monday that it , owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, for $580 million.

Wanna run that by me again?

Poor role models

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, if the eds don't even use the Preview button, how much hope can we have that users will too?

It's amazing to me they would greenlight a story and not do a followup preview of what it looks like.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Anonymous Crowhead]

OMG! I don't know about something. How is this possible? I am garcia! Knower of all there is to be knowed.

my god

[nomadic]

$580 million? Are they insane? Yes, they are. It's not worth it. It never will be worth it. Ever.

Horrible editing...

[Dreoth]

Blah, I submitted a much more verbose version of this to YRO last night. News Corp. owns FOX. They bought Intermix Media Inc.which owns MySpace.com

Quote from Yahoo!:
"The thing about MySpace is that it's a growing audience," said Jupiter Research analyst David Card. "Its users are pretty loyal. They get a lot of time spent on their pages. And the personal information they get from users is pretty reliable because they want to meet people. One would think this information would be pretty useful to advertisers." Yeah, good enough reason for me to remove my blogs and other information.

how?

[Anonymous Coward]

how do become html guru liek "jagger"??????

Wow

[TFloore]

There are so many things to say here. I'll start with

This sentence no verb.

But that's okay, I think it was missing an object too.

This entire story is going to be nothing but well-deserved bashing of Slashdot editors.

Re:Wow

[Spy der Mann]

This entire story is going to be nothing but well-deserved bashing of Slashdot editors.

Until they fix it and the karma-whoring opportunities are gone.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

This entire story is going to be nothing but well-deserved bashing of Slashdot editors.

It's only well-deserved by people who actually -pay- for this site.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[garcia]

OMG! I don't know about something. How is this possible? I am garcia! Knower of all there is to be knowed.

Why would a site that's nothing but bullshit be the 5th most viewed site on the web? I would think that as a regular Internet surfer I would be able to easily rattle the top 5 sites off w/o hestitation.

If anything, I wasn't bragging, I was surprised that some apparently crappy site was so popular.

Thanks for the troll though.

What it SHOULD have said:

[griboyedov]

"News Corp announced on Monday that it was the new owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, paying $580 million for it. This follows an announcement by News Corp on Friday that it is creating an Internet division to hold the company's sports, news and entertainment sites."

Re:What it SHOULD have said:

[Pxtl]

Now that this is corrected, it does show that the headline is still wrong. Fox is not "to purchase myspace" - which implies the near future. Fox purchased myspace, past-tense.

Are you sure you checked your post?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The word is "Ridiculous".
2. Your "corrected" blurb still neglects the fact that the first sentence makes absolutely no sense.

Here's a link for ya...

[gregarican]

click me FFS!!!

here is my math

[Ex Machina]

$580000000 / 22064129 profiles (lower bound set by the number of "friends" "tom" has)
= $26.287010921664 / profile

Re:here is my math

[Anonymous Coward]

Inaccurate... I deleted "Tom" as my "friend"...now go readjust your numbers accordingly!

Re:here is my math

[Ex Machina]

hence "lower bound"

Re:here is my math

[Anonymous Coward]

You and a million others I'm sure. I know I did, and most of my friends did also.

Toms a real douche bag.

Re:here is my math

[Anonymous Coward]

Toms a real douche bag.

I think he spreads himself a bit too thin.

Re:here is my math

[fbartho]

you mean upper bound, I think.

Re:here is my math

[x0n]

Yeah, and don't I feel stupid deleting that smug git "Tom" from my friends list* now that he's rolling around nekkid in $580m. Tom? Be my friend? Answer my emails Tom??

(* he's added by default when you sign up)

- Oisin

Re:here is my math

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprsingly, Tom's a real person in the company. I had a friend who worked there, and he said that's the first thing anyone ever asks him.

Re:here is my math

[Ex Machina]

lower bound on the number of people, upper bound on price per account

Re:here is my math

[tor528]

I'd say your math is fairly accurate, because:

22272629 in my "Network"
$580000000 / 22272629 = $26.04 per profile

On MySpace, "Your Network" (or Extended Network) is how many friends of friends you have within three (or four?) hops. Since Tom is everyone's default friend, and is still friends with so many users, it is safe to assume that everyone who actually uses the site is in my extended network.

Fox... reminds of Simpsons

[Gopal.V]

Do you remember the ending of the Marge driving an Suv episode ?.

Homer: [voice-over] I'd like to read the following statement, but I do so under ... [sound of gun cocking] ... my own free will.

It has come to my attention that NBC sucks.

I apologize for misleading you and urge you to watch as many Fox shows as possible.

So in summary, NBC -- bad.
Fox -- good.
CBS great.

[sound of gunshot, followed by a thud.]

Anyway, the worst article ever. Bad links and I'll wait to see what Fox does with MySpace.com - I predict a disaster.

Re:Fox... reminds of Simpsons

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so they have the Internet on computers, now...

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[eln]

When I checked it out this morning I realized that it's nothing more than a "good looking" spam webportal.

It's basically a blogging site, not a "spam webportal." If you like blogging sites, you've probably heard of myspace, and might even have a personal "space" there. If you ignore all things blogging, you probably have never heard of myspace, or don't care about it either way.

Missing option

[op12]

He was (heavily) intoxicated, you insensitive clod!

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[MrPerfekt]

Perhaps you've not heard of the "Social Networking" catagory?

The point is you have a large site with thousands and thousands of members and then have those members "mingle" with each other and prominately display their connections.

Yes, it is a bit high school.. but the reason why it's the fifth most popular site: because it's huge among high schoolers.

But it does serve it's purpose I guess. Now, if only they could a) afford decent programmers and b) stop loading the site up with flash animations that suck my cpu dry.

Well, I'm fairly certain

[gotr00t]

that /. doesn't have a "vent radioactive gas" command.

Then again, who knowns....

Re:Well, I'm fairly certain

[Nytewynd]

Accept Post?
[Y/N]:> Y

Accept Post?
[Y/N]:> Y

Accept Post?
[Y/N]:> Y

Crash Servers?
[Y/N]:> Y

Re:That garbage worth 580 million? (it's not php)

[Khyron]

Dude, that's unfair to PHP developers everywhere...

MySpace runs CFML, and always has. Specifically, today they runs their CFML application code on Blue Dragon, rather than ColdFusion for the increased scalability and compatibility with a .NET stack. Their leaders spoke at CFUnited a few weeks ago.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[mmkkbb]

When I checked it out this morning I realized that it's nothing more than a "good looking" spam webportal.

Wrong, it's a horrible looking spam social networking site that has all the lousy bits of livejournal, friendster, makeoutclub, and amihotornot.com. It's all the rage among college freshmen.

I want the old slashdot back

[Soong]

the one that didn't suck.

I want the old CNN back too; back before they tried to out-Fox Faux News.

Wah.

broken link not showing?

[TheRealDamion]

It's probably automatically corrected by IE so none of the windows using /. editors even know what these threads are talking about.

Open Source Myspace

[dominion]

I've been working on an open source myspace style website called Appleseed for a while now. Screenshots are available on the website. I'm planning on releasing the code soon.

I've always been really annoyed with myspace. The coding errors, the bombardment of ads, that creepy "Tom" guy. But a lot of my friends were on it, so I made an account.

I'm hoping that a distributed project like Appleseed would do a bit to take the carpet out from under the rug of things like MySpace and Friendster, which are as much about community as Wal-Mart is.

I'm not very close to being done with Appleseed. I'm running low on time, and I'm hoping that releasing the code will encourage others to help out. I think I've gotten a decent foundation completed, and once I have the code cleaned up and at a point that I'm not embarrassed by it, I'll let it loose on the world.

Suggestion ..

[Entropy]

Every time I get mod points, it asks me if I have read the moderator guidelines yet.

Perhaps there should be a link for editor guidelines ..

I mean, this is brutally bad editing, folks.

Myspace is yucky.

[Captain Scurvy]

Maybe Fox will improve the site's layout. As it stands, Myspace is a very poorly designed website, especially compared to The Facebook.

Re:Myspace is yucky.

[Anonymous Coward]

thefacebook is very much awesome. i like it because it is 90% text-based. low bandwidth needed. myspace, OTOH, is 90% flash. it lags at work on a T1. pure shit.

Just what we need....

[ramblin billy]

Thank god! No more of that pesky decision process..."hmmmm, this website says homosexual behavior causes your teeth to fall out, makes you get bad gas mileage and condemns you to an eternity in hell, I wonder if I can trust it?"

At last! A 'Fair and Balanced' portal!

billy - hackers of the world unite! can you say 'foxse' ? i knew you could...

Hey, I think you dropped this

[isthisorigional]

Here ya go buddy, Looks like that might come in handy one day!

The Slashdot post

[Evro]

In the event it gets fixed, here's how Zonk's post looks as of 14:40 US EST:

jagger writes "a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4695495. stm">News Corp announced on Monday that it , owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, for $580 million. This follows an announcement by News Corp on Friday that it is creating an Internet division to hold the company's sports, news and entertainment sites."

Good job, Zonk!

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[beowulfy]

i've been a myspace user since it started and there's no spam involved. its just a good way of communicating with people you normally don't see. its also a nice way to keep track of bands as they tour if you become 'friends' with them. also nice if your a band to be able to send out bulletins to all the people your 'friends' with.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you call it bullshit just because you don't have a use for it?

Basically, it's a social networking site that's pretty easy to use. It also hosts music for smaller bands, and allow people to share photos of themselves. It lets normal people make web pages about themselves. Just think of all the people who want to make a web page, but don't know how.

Yeah, you may think that's lame, but why don't you try searching for some of your friends or old classmates by name there. You'll probably find at least one.

more proof that editors don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

and haven't for a long time. this place is ridiculous. THE EDITORS ARE NO BETTER THAN MYSPACE TOM!

It's ok

[BlackCobra43]

I'm sure there's plenty of fat guys wearing muu-muus browsing /. to save us should anything happen.

Slow down, Cowboy!

[Tim Browse]

It's only been like half a day since you posted the last dupe or incomprehensible post!

Give the other editors a chance.

(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!)

Sorrority Girls

[eestar]

A recent poll I took around campus showed that the only people that use myspace are sorrority girls and the cast of the "OC". Isn't it obvious folks, Rupert Murdoch wants to turn the politically inactive bimbos of the greek system into Republicans.

Poll Idea

[jambarama]

What common slashdot problem pisses you off the most?

1. 404
2. Dupe
3. Roland Piquepaille
4. Broken Code
5. You can't edit your comments
6. Poor spelling (in articles) 7. Poor grammmar (in articles) 8. Stories no one cares about.

In other news slashcode offers a patch.

Re:Poll Idea

[typobox43]

9. CowboyNeal

/. replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who knows a good /. replacement site?
there is http://www.kuro5hin.org/, but that one doesn't seem to active.
Any others?

Re:/. replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.digg.com/

Re:/. replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

This site isn't bad but not that many readers.

Original article post

[funny-jack]

For anyone who is wondering what the anti-/.-"editor" comments are all about, this is what the original story looked like.

Pathetic.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[dnixon112]

Why would a site that's nothing but bullshit be the 5th most viewed site on the web?

Maybe, just maybe it's not 'nothing but bullshit'? Perhaps there are sites out there that offer services that you don't like. Imagine that.

Worst. HTML. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, if you click the link that says "jagger" then that takes you nowhere. And if you copy and paste what in the HTML tag, it won't take you to the BBC site, with the space in the URL. And as you can see by reading the first few posts, it just takes a few minutes at most to correct these errors. If the money for subscriptions goes to the editors, I sure won't be subscribing to this site.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[koreaman]

You are giving us high schoolers a bad name

It's not immensely popular among high schoolers. It's immensely popular among idiotic high schoolers.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[lpangelrob]

In addition to what's been said, it actually started as a website for promoting independent bands. I've never been in a band myself, but it's immediately obvious from just observing that people in bands like to critique each other's stuff, and to some extent, promote each other. MySpace became the place to go for stuff like that.

It grew a bit from there because someone decided that, hey, maybe people in general would like to have something like this.

The site feels really, really hacked together at times... as if there were phpNuke modules being tacked on every few months... but it stays online and serves its purpose and audience well.

My thoughts on editors...

[mikvo]

I have to wonder why we waste so much time in the discussion threads telling the editors how poorly they do their jobs. It's obvious that they don't even pay much attention to the actual submitted articles. Do you think they actually read the discussions?

Netcraft

[Kj0n]

According to Netcraft, the rank of MySpace.com is only 76.

Number 1 is -- of course -- Google. Slashdot has rank 587.

Re:Netcraft

[infonography]

According to Netcraft, the rank of MySpace.com is only 76.

Number 1 is -- of course -- Google. Slashdot has rank 587.

If we are only 587, does that mean we can't slashdot them? I feel soo weak......

Re:Netcraft

[ferat]

www.slashdot.org is 587.
slashdot.org is 35.

Wonder where /. would rank if both were combined.

Re:Netcraft

[Bill Barth]

That's for www.slashdot.org, slashdot.org is 35.

Re:Netcraft

[beowulfy]

i'm not sure i belive their info. they list themselves as #5, above amazon.com that seem like bs to me. ask about anyone and they'll tell you who amazon is. netcraft...uh who's that?

Re:Netcraft

[Enigma_Man]

burnt cookies?

Re:Netcraft

[rayde]

the netcraft toolbar users are not a good sample space for doing statistical analysis of internet traffic...

Re:Netcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Alexa lists Myspace as 26.

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?q=myspace&u rl=http://www.myspace.com/

Re:Netcraft

[swf]

Actually, slashdot is at number 35.

Re:Netcraft

[Hard_Rock_2]

Well http://slashdot.org/ is, www.slashdot.org is a bit further down. I guess to conlude most people find typing www. excessively time consuming.

Re:Netcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, slashdot has a rank of 35

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[MrPerfekt]

Touche! I stand corrected.

Well, Rupert's money's going up the chimney.

[crovira]

The rates on Fox are about to go up.

The audience for this site may sound like an idea demographic, but not for paying for a site.

No, but he might be on a bender now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to see here, please move along.

Never heard of MySpace.

[BigZaphod]

I had never heard of MySpace until, by coincidence, I read this story about the site yesterday. To hear that it was sold for millions of dollars surprised me, to say the least. I went to check it out yesterday and, while I didn't spend much time with it, it seemed there wasn't anything that could be done without signing up for a profile first! It hurts us, precious!

I'll do the editor's work for them I guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

As of 2:35 PM, the summary looks like this:

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday July 19, @02:26PM
from the murdoch-immediately-propositioned-for-cyber dept.
jagger writes "a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4695495. stm">News Corp announced on Monday that it , owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j html?articleID=166400491&tid=13692">for $580 million. This follows an announcement by News Corp on Friday that it is creating an Internet division to hold the company's sports, news and entertainment sites."

More correctly, it should look like this:

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday July 19, @02:26PM
from the editing-is-for-wimps dept.
someguy writes News Corp is a massive media conflomerate owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. News Corp recently announced that they are moving into the internet market, with the acquisition of Intermix media, which runs the popular MySpace.com social networking site. For more information, refer to this BBC news article, and this information week article.

BBC Article text is:

News Corp in $580m internet buy

News Corp, the company run by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has made one of its first major internet purchases.

It has bought Intermix Media, owner of Myspace.com, the fifth most-viewed internet domain in the US and owner of other sites for $580m (£332.85m).

Mr Murdoch says the networking site will drive traffic to his Fox TV sites.

Last week the company set up a new internet unit. Mr Murdoch has said that newspapers have been slow to respond to competition from the internet.

Advertising advantage

"With a significant amount of advertising dollars moving from traditional outlets to online, News Corp, like most media companies, is looking to boost its internet assets," Alan Gould, an analyst at Natexis Bleichroeder, told Reuters.

The US market for internet advertising is growing at 15% in 2005, according to media buyers Universal McCann.

Myspace.com users connect to the site for dating, making friends, professional networking and sharing interests.

Earlier this year, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer accused Intermix of deceptive business practices, including the use of spyware that delivered pop-up adverts and redirected users to its search engine.

Intermix agreed to pay $7.9m to settle the suit but did not admit wrongdoing.

InformationWeek article:

News Corp. To Acquire Intermix Media July 18, 2005

The move triples News Corp.'s reach among U.S. Internet users and makes it a player in the online social-networking market. By Antone Gonsalves
InternetWeek

News Corp. on Monday said it has agreed to acquire Intermix Media Inc., which owns more than 30 e-commerce and media websites, for $580 million in cash, tripling News Corp.'s reach among U.S. Internet users and making it a player in the online social-networking market.

In a separate deal, Intermix announced on Monday that it has acquired the 47 percent of social networking site MySpace.com that it didn't already own.

In the News Corp. agreement, the Los Angeles based media giant would pay $12 per common share of Intermix stock, or about $580 million. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter, pending approval of Intermix stockholders.

MySpace.com and Intermix's other

You can buy my domain...

[jekewa]

Hey, Fox! I've got a couple of underused domain names you can have for half that much!

I'd list 'em here, but they'd no doubt be crippled by /. almost immediately. I have the domain names, but just some old PCs as servers for 'em...you'll have to use your own iron.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[garcia]

Maybe, just maybe it's not 'nothing but bullshit'? Perhaps there are sites out there that offer services that you don't like. Imagine that.

You would think that Google, Yahoo, MSN, CNN, and any other major news site would attract a TON more traffic than myspace.com.

I would also think that you would somehow be linked there frequently by friends, search engines, or news stories. It surprises me that as the 5th most viewed site on the web I have never had Google tell me to go there when searching for "foo".

It has nothing to do w/me liking the site or not.

What pisses you off most about slashdot?

[jambarama]

What about slashdot pisses you off the most?

1. 404
2. Articles are frequent dupes
3. Roland Piquepaille advertisements
4. Broken Code (on the main page)
5. You can't edit your comments
6. Poor spelling/grammar (in articles)
7. The moderation system
8. Sluggish server responses (being slashdotted)
9. Flamebait articles designed to start holy wars
10. Stories no one cares about.

Re:What pisses you off most about slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd have to say all of those things. i frequently leave this site pulling my hair out and slamming fists on the keyboard like this guy: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=badday.mpg&bt nG=Google+Search

Re:What pisses you off most about slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

my vote is for not missing poll options

Re:What pisses you off most about slashdot?

[protocol420]

how hard would it be to coralize all submitted URLs? one line of code?

my question

[hyperstation]

for a site bombarded with "win a free xxxx" ads and populated (mostly) by the usual losers looking for a free hook-up (they're also the ones who click on those ads), how is this worth 580 mil? really, do some browsing on myspace.com - the average IQ has to be close to room temperature. wtf does FOX see in this crap?

Re:my question

[op12]

the average IQ has to be close to room temperature

In Fahrenheit or Celsius? :)

Re:my question

[NineNine]

the average IQ has to be close to room temperature. wtf does FOX see in this crap?

Their average viewer.

Re:my question

[SPY_jmr1]

they make IQ in Farenheit and Celsius now?

Re:my question

[mpontes]

Winner. Parent should even be modded insightful, not funny. There should be an option for "+1, Zing" (or "+1, Burn").

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[ajayvb]

MySpace apparently has a strong community for Indie music bands, and has a 'stickiness' quotient far higher than that of Friendster or other social networking sites. BW Link

editors should be subject to the same rules

[rrosales]

Does anyone else believe that editors should be forced to click a "Preview" button to see how the actual topic will be displayed before publishing it to the public? It does say "(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!)"

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[mattsucks]

Yes, it is a bit high school.. but the reason why it's the fifth most popular site: because it's huge among high schoolers.

fyi it has also proven to be a very useful tool for musicians and bands looking to connect with potential fans.

(Yes, I'm in a band, and no, I'm not going to whore it here.)

TOS excerpt

[fahrvergnugen]

Hope you like giving away your hard-earned works for free to Fox: By posting Content on any public area of MySpace.com, you automatically grant as well as represent and warrant that you have the right to grant to MySpace.com, an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, and distribute such information and content to MySpace.com and that MySpace.com has the right to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

Re:TOS excerpt

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like retarded school dramas will be high on the list of media presented by Fox. I'll make sure to never use MySpace at all, even though I already didn't use it.

Re:TOS excerpt

[blackmonday]

This is going to be a problem for the thousands of bands (including mine) that uploaded 3 songs for myspace listeners to check out. They don't own our music.

Re:TOS excerpt

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should've read the TOS before posting content on their servers? Oops!

Re:TOS excerpt

[chrisbro]

Holy shit. Was this in the TOS all along? I don't personally care; I post no works on the site. But for the small-time musicians...am I correct in saying this was really not a big deal before, since MySpace didn't have any means of distributing the works they "own", but now that they have a media outlet behind them, they can use the works however they want AND have a good way to distribute and sell them? Please tell me I'm wrong on this one.

Re:TOS excerpt

[rhizome]

Hope you like giving away your hard-earned works for free to Fox:

is there a change-of-control clause?

Re:TOS excerpt

[SunCrushr]

IANAL, but as far as I can see, reading the MySpace TOS, this does not grant MySpace, or whoever owns them any rights to use your works in any way whatsoever. So you don't have to worry about MySpace stealing your music or photos.

What you are agreeing to is that you have the right to give them those rights to the content you are posting if they ask you for the rights. You don't have to give them those rights under any cercumstance, and you most certainly are not giving them any control rights over your copyright. You are simply stating that those rights are yours to give in the first place.

That way, you are agreeing that the content you are posting is basically yours to post, and you are taking responsibility if you don't have those rights and are breaking copyright. This way, MySpace can't get sued if you post someone else's works.

Re:TOS excerpt

[Anonymous Coward]

They do now. Maybe you might want to read more carefully next time.

Re:TOS excerpt

[chrisbro]

OK, whew. You saved me an embarrassing rant on my blog. ;) For the first time, I can now say "mod me down" and mean it (regarding my previous post).

Re:TOS excerpt

[Anonymous Coward]

"By posting Content on any public area of MySpace.com, you automatically grant as well as represent and warrant that you have the right to grant to MySpace.com, an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, and distribute such information and content to MySpace.com and that MySpace.com has the right to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."

Re:TOS excerpt

[Anonymous Coward]

you automatically grant as well as represent and warrant that you have the right to grant

Don't put away the blog pen just yet -- read that phrase closely: It's saying that you both grant them the rights AND affirm that you are *able* to grant those rights. In other words, by the act of submitting content to Myspace, you are implicitly asserting that it is _your_ content to post (i.e. you are not posting something that someone else owns the rights to), and SIMULTANEOUSLY granting Myspace permission to do with the content as they please.

Your first interpretation was correct, and you should not have been so quick to tell other people to mod you down. You were right, and Myspace is doing something very very wrong here.

Re:TOS excerpt

[chrisbro]

This is going to have to be looked into further. Completely unacceptable if Fox suddenly took into their wings all of the submitted content on MySpace. How does it work with uploaded content that already has rights? Musicians who put up songs that already have a record deal with the songs on it? I'm going to watch this one closely.

Re:TOS excerpt

[DustyShadow]

They changed the Terms of Service today. Perhaps it was because of this post?? Perhaps commenting on Slashdot goes further than we think?? It's funny cause I posted a bulletin about it on myspace and they deleted it. I'm surprised they can read all of them...It now says:

c. By posting any Content to the public areas of the Website, you hereby grant to MySpace.com the non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, publicly perform and display such Content on the Website. This license will terminate at the time you remove such Content from the Website. You represent and warrant that: (i) you own the Content posted by you on the Website or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, and (ii) your Content does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyright rights, or other intellectual property rights of any person. You agree to pay for all royalties and fees owing any person by reason of any Content you post on the Website.

Re:TOS excerpt

[SunCrushr]

I'll admit that the language is somewhat vague, but as far as I can tell here, you aren't granting them rights. You are granting that you have the right to grant them rights.

Probably should be looked at by a lawyer to be certain, but I don't think this is an issue, since AFAIK, you can't give rights to copyright without a signed contract anyway. An online "click here to agree" would never hold up in court, and the courts tend to lean on the side of ruling in favor of the content creator when it comes to disputes caused by vague wording in contracts. Even a lot of signed contracts in the record business don't hold up when the content creator makes a dispute. Also, there is no clause in this TOS that grants them any control rights over your copyright, so even if this TOS grants them the right to repost your work, (which may for example be neeeded so that they can do things like show pictures of new people on the site) you can revoke their right at any time, because you hold control over the copyright. So, in other words, I wouldn't worry.

Re:TOS excerpt

[SunCrushr]

Nevermind.
Looks like they cleared it up on the site after noticing that lots of people may be worried.
Now its much clearer.
They don't own your work at all.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Stud1y]

since when do kids like the news more than pictures of their friends?

come on. its like hot or not but with sluttier girls.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[TheScottishGuy]

i know that's all i used it for, it let me catch up with old high school peeps.

Sorry about the copy errors, folks.

[ravenspear]

They have been fixed. :)

"CmdrTaco announced on Tuesday that he, founder of the popular Slashdot.org technology site, doesn't give a shit for the readability level."

Error in your math

[nganju]

FTA:
"it has agreed to acquire Intermix Media Inc., which owns more than 30 e-commerce and media websites"

So MySpace is only one of 30 e-commerce sites owned by the acquired company. It's not reasonable to assume that MySpace is worth $580 million by itself.

does this mean no more dupes?

[zonker]

Sorry about the copy errors, folks. They have been fixed.

Wow! So we aren't going to have to read any more dupe stories? Cool!

Hmmm

[dspisak]

Hopefully MySpace won't turn into MyRepublicanNeoConSpace. However it will be great if the FOX people can get rid of the %&$%^$ Jamster ads from the site. I hate ads that make noise.

Re:Hmmm

[acb]

It'll use GeoIP to detect where you're viewing from. In the US, it'll be festooned with flags and show ads for Ann Coulter's latest book. In Britain, it'll be done up in the Burberry tartan and run warnings about dark-skinned terrorist paedophiles and pictures of big-breasted blondes. In China, it'll administer an electric shock if you use the word "democracy".

Prioritize people! Behold! the list...

[bumptehjambox]

Why make fun of /. editors when there is so much MySpace to make fun of!?
Here's a random one that came up: http://www.myspace.com/mentalescape/
Beware of really bad MIDI beats.

If you've never taken a second to look at some of this stuff on MySpace, its just a bunch of people taking pics of themselves and waiting for compliments.
1. Add a list of horrible metalcore/emo-pseudo-teen-angst music (music played by 30 year olds, with lyrics written by 7th grade girls that just got off a SERIOUSLY DEEP 3 day relationship OMG)
2. Drop the names of a few obscure movies and old TV shows you were too young for
3. Guys- wear some girls jeans, and even if your shooting star tatoo is still red take a pic immediately as its added points!
4. Girls- wear your makeup like you're 4 years old and just broke into mommy's purse
...much more can be added I know.

Re:Prioritize people! Behold! the list...

[Anonymous Coward]

MySpace explained

Okay - now you have to update it.

I figured...

[Stud1y]

That a digital camera company would buy it. Being all these kids got digital camera's for chrismas for no reason other than to take pictures of themselves half-clothed so the can get more "friends" on their list... What else are they supposed to do with these things? They're all pseduo-photographer-journalist-peotry-emo kids... oh well. at least some are hot.

Re:I figured...

[Anonymous Coward]

can you say hypocrite? http://www.nov11th.com/pictures.htm

Re:I figured...

[Danzigism]

i fuckin hate emo kids haha.. i just hope Fox doesn't turn all those emo kids into liberal hating conservatives

Re:I figured...

[Stud1y]

hypocrite? we both have all of our clothes on? stop stalkering my fiance! EAK!

Re:I figured...

[Anonymous Coward]

LOLZer I SLASZHDOOTED YOU!!!!11!!!!

"Can't aford bandwidth from a slashdot effect of people thinking there are naked photos of me here ... my apologies."

All they have left to do

[frank_adrian314159]

Now all Rupert needs to do is to figure out how to cut out the left side of the space.

Confirmed

[imatt]

Tom Confirmed this via MySpace Message. It's pending.

Missing option

[rylin]

All of the above?

Well, number five ain't that bad.
Other than that, I'd like to congratulate you on summing up /. in ten points!

You forgot one point though:
11. Posts complaining about slashdot automatically getting modded down.

We're all fucked!

[killawatt5k]

Nooooooo! this can't be! I just figured out how to put Beyonces' "crazy in love" video on my page! Noooo!

580,000,000 dollars

[RTSKABJ]

how do they plan on making it back?

Re:580,000,000 dollars

[superdoo]

Volume. Didn't you learn anything from the .com bubble?

Why?

[joschm0]

This really scares me why the media arm of the Whitehouse is interested in a "Social Networking" blogging website.

Ugliest site ever

[stelmach]

This is proof that your site doesn't have to be pretty to be profitable.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[dsands1]

I'd say it's more than just a good looking spam webportal. I'd classify it as the "have all, be all, end all of internet hook-up sites". In summary:

1. Broke up with my g/f of 4 years in Oct 2004
2. Spent a couple months just feeling sorry for myself and not dating at all
3. On the recommendation of a friend I set up a profile on myspace and started making "friends".
4. By mid-January 2005 I'd been on probably 8-10 dates, quite a few of which led to... intimate relations.

That's why people are going to the site.

Good News!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republican Party can now spread rumours through blogs instead of using Karl Rove calling up Robert Novack.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[bmeteor]

i agree with you. I keep in touch with most of my friends on it. It's kind of replaced most of my personal email. I've seen some really great bands off of it, hooked up off of it, threw some great parties, and gotten to know some really great people too. I run a book club off it too.

I originally got on it, because friendster was really buggy at the time, and my ex on the time was on it.

it's hilarious too in that I'll go to the bar, and see people I've seen on myspace, and we'll talk about it like it's some guilty pleasure. it's pretty funny when a girl you've never met tells you that they know you when they only know you from myspace.

but yeah, hopefully Fox recognizes that the brand is stronger than fox, and doesn't try to insert some of their coporate DNA into it.

(I'm 27 in case you were wondering )

high schoolers

[ChrisBennett]

It's the most popular site for older guys trying to get younger high school girls.

Re:high schoolers

[koreaman]

Are you the same Chris Bennett who is essentially the god of LD in the state of Arizona?

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, the answer is no.

Re:high schoolers

[Johnny5000]

It's the most popular site for older guys trying to get younger high school girls.

How's that been working out for you?

Re:high schoolers

[ChrisBennett]

Not why I use it. Funny story that made me think of that though:

My girlfriend who was 17 at the time was messaged by a 24 year old guy who said "hey cutie, you're pretty hot, what's your number, i'll call you some time".

She was as freaked out so I told her she should give him her number, except that it would happen to be the same number of the police department.

He called it. =D

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[jcdill]

I was shocked to know that there was a domain out there that I have never visited yet it's the fifth most popular out there.

Maybe you haven't heard about this "5th most popular internet domain in the US" because it's not actually in 5th place (no surprise there!).

Netcraft rates www.myspace.com at 76th worldwide:

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=www.my space.com

below more popular sites like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, PayPal, CNN, MSN, /. (at #35), IMDB, DSL Reports, Comcast, Fox News, NY Times, etc. Here's a list of the Netcraft top 100:

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/stats/topsites?s=DA280 D988226E9C01B1D0E6F2491#76

jc

All things with "My" in them are Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been my experience that everything that is prefixed with "My" is spam, spyware, and generally undesirable. "MyPoints" "MyWebSearch" "MyFreeRoofingTile".

Next time you're cleaning off spyware from someone's PC, take a moment to observe how many of them are prefixed "My". There must be something in the psyche of the average user to make them want to install something they feel is "My".

watch out

[Anonymous Coward]

my always lookin for a hookup on myspace ex-gf is lurking this thread, she's mad!!!

Third-Party-Advertiser Space.com

[CorporateWhoremone]

Since social sites especially, bandwidth intensive ones, such as MySpace are barely able to make any money in there own right. Sooner or later they will sell out to some larger company. Fox hasn't gained a profitable entity in the current MySpace business model, they have gained a giant pool of consumers who have listed out everything they like and dislike from sport, to music, to business. Fox will figure out some way to get there $26 dollars per user out of MySpace. Social sites present a huge potential for marketing. This will probably give Fox a huge leg up in there future marketing towards young people. Don't be too surprised if once they have harvested all the pop culture crap they can stand, they will sell it off and it will become a useless pay site.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[zindorsky]

stop loading the site up with flash animations that suck my cpu dry.

You do use Firefox, right? Get the Adblock extension and all your troubles will be over. When I go to Myspace now, it looks positively spartan.

This sounds a *lot* like Disney's GO.COM

[callipygian-showsyst]

Disney did this "entertainment and sports" portal called GO.COM.

It failed.

Sentence was correct, just not finished

[mindaktiviti]

The sentence is correct, it just wasn't finished:

News Corp announced on Monday that it , owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, for $580 million purchased 5,800,000 $100 coupons for spyware removal tools for all of its employees, their extended families and friends, when the improbability drive from the Heart of Gold wizzed by News Corp's Think Tank, ripping a hole in the space time continuum of the CEO's brain.

It was reported that hilarity ensued.

The internet boom 2.0

[Duncan3]

The cool part of the internet is when you buy X million profiles, there are still an infinite number left to buy - you own 0%. They are not a scare resource. I assume this will be a new addition to Fox Kids, since myspace is mostly K-12.

This fad too shall pass, remember when dialup subscribers were worth something? MySpace is so last year, now it's all about the podcast.

Podcast: n, 1. The voice of the person who cannot understand why noone cared about their webpage about their cat, the blog about their cat, or the social network of cat lovers. 2. the precursor to Vodcast - the daily video on demand... about peoples cats.

Re:The internet boom 2.0

[SPY_jmr1]

so... this time you didn't RTFSite? K-12? Wth? try 18-dead, aka, prime marketing target.

Yes I use it. Mostly for entertainment, to see what the hell some people act like.. Must be a voyuristic thing, *shrugs*

Nothing is more obnoxious then whiny teenaged girls who are borderline retarded who openly admit they lied to get a "profilez", because the site tries to restrict to 18+, probably for legal reasons... If nothing else, just to disclaim if someone DOES yell at them over their precious little angel seeing a booby on teh intarweb.

Just FYI. :-D

Re:The internet boom 2.0

[SPY_jmr1]

Bah, I meant to use FWIW, and not FYI... stupid T&FLA's...

Outrages

[Anonymous Coward]

The media is aimed at controlling the younger age...fox is a shitty bush loving network that saw an opportunity to control the kids/teenagers in school and took it, im going to convince my 2 brothers and all of there friends to stop using myspace due to this outrages buy.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[slavemowgli]

I hadn't heard of the site yet, either, but from your description, it sounds very much like Orkut, and while I wouldn't go as far as the grandparent poster and describe that as a spam webportal, it isn't exactly useful, either.

Ultimately, it probably fits right in with sports news sites, online poker sites and the like - sites that are popular because they appeal to the masses, but that the intelligentsia is much less likely to visit.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[bobobobo]

Because you're not hip and "with it".

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at garcia's slashdot id number... he doesn't have any friends.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[slavemowgli]

Why would a site that's nothing but bullshit be the 5th most viewed site on the web?

Why is 90% of the email I get spam? :) Same reason really - most people are stupid. Admittedly, that's a somewhat misanthropic point of view, but it seems to be true more often than not...

I would think that as a regular Internet surfer I would be able to easily rattle the top 5 sites off w/o hestitation.

I'm pretty sure that Yahoo and Google (in whatever order) are #1 and 2, but what's #3, 4 and 5? I'm not sure that it's really something that you'd "just know" as a web surfer - there simply are too many sites with lots of visitors.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[bmeteor]

now all the people making fun of it are going to get accounts. Way to let the secret out. :-)

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Morgon]

Not to mention the people who absolutely can't live without posting music videos to their site, or in comments of other people's profiles...

Thank god for Greasemonkey, I can't visit it without arming myself with the MySpace Tag Remover script.

http://www.kenmickles.com/greasemonkey - free plug for you, dude!

Umm, Why MySpace?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried MySpace a few weeks back and it seemed totally armature to me, It was also plagued with spam. So I have to ask, why?

Am I missing somthing?

Fox just bought it...

[doormat]

because they want to make sure the 2020 republican presidential candidate wont have his myspace profile to come back and bite him in the ass.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, I'm not so sure that anyone who includes a "Furry Portal" in their profile should insinuate that they are part of an "intelligensia"....

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[MyDixieWrecked]

Yes, it is a bit high school..

psha!! that's why every girl I've ever dated from that site has been a total immature cunt! at least I got laid. that's why I fell in love with the site.

Now, if only they could a) afford decent programmers and b) stop loading the site up with flash animations that suck my cpu dry.

programmers schmogrammers... if only they could afford decent servers... or at the programmer level, at least not base the damned site on coldfusion. (or is it based on IIS, I forget)

users customizing their personal pages are another thing that's a serious problem. with all of those scrolling picture animations of kimberly and her friends at the beach and everything and the stupid music videos. Some people have 45mb worth of content on their page!

oh yeah... I'm a loser.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would other people be going to such a large site but not me? When I checked it out this morning I realized that it's nothing more than a "good looking" spam webportal.

Myspacers invite their friends, people they think are cool, so I wouldn't expect it to catch on with Slashdot. I'm actually a little saddened that it got exposure on here, which will inevitably lead to more geekiness one-up-manship and more teenage immaturity.

Myspace was best when it had 3 million members almost a year ago. Trendy, savvy, without being overly geeky. Now that it has 20+ million members, everyone and their mother has a myspace, losers and all.

And now an influx of slashdot geeks....

In other news...

[jgold03]

All myspaces must now be pro-Bush and Arab-hating, or else they will be pulled.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm actually a little saddened that it got exposure on here, which will inevitably lead to more geekiness one-up-manship and more teenage immaturity. ...

And now an influx of slashdot geeks....

You don't see any hypocrisy in posting here with all the "geeks" and "losers"? No hint of one-up-manship or teenage immaturity?

If you're a "Myspacer", Fox are welcome to it. If not, go back to the other trolls at kuro5hin.

My American friend..

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget left and right-wing. Rupert Murdoch is pro his own personal wealth, which in this world equates to the same as pro his own personal power, which in turn means that he is usually pro the powers that be. It's as simple as that.

You Americans should stop the ridiculous infighting between "red" and "blue" states and realise that in this game, it's the ruling class vs. the rest of you. They're consciously playing you up against eachother, and you've all taken their bait.

Re:My American friend..

[minus_273]

mods +5 funny!

hahaha! thats probably the best reply ever to a discussion of communism! you just made my day. :-D

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[chromaphobic]

but yeah, hopefully Fox recognizes that the brand is stronger than fox, and doesn't try to insert some of their coporate DNA into it.

"Look for your friends, but do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands."

Popular

[SwItCH_LiVEs]

It's a popular site really, It was a smart move for them I'm sure. Hell, it's basically a singles site, except instead of hiding, everyone is vocal. I've met tons of people on myspace that i've met because of the website. http://www.myspace.com/noir_denver/ oddly, it works out as a great way to meet people. Hot girls too

Ted Editor r deh R00zlers!

[Anonymous Coward]

om Tick nick how splat womp chomp ding szip ping chew-zdley wop.

Philosophical Question

[jpiggot]

So, does this make it "TheirSpace" ? (ducks)

Bad news for MySpace

[m3g4t0ky0]

MySpace will suffer the same fate as most of Fox's TV shows -- cancellation. I can see it now... "ZOMG WHAT WILL I DO NOW THAT MYSPACE HAS BEEN CANCELLED!?!!!?1"

Here's why

[Ultronator]

1) Buy company hosting the largest social networking site on the internet.

2) Use its user base to fuel your next big reality show.

3) We have to suffer through another crappy FOX reality show and of course (sadly) Profit!!!

Missing option

[Anonymous Coward]

Breasts.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[danharan]

I would think that as a regular Internet surfer I would be able to easily rattle the top 5 sites off w/o hestitation.

I'm pretty sure you couldn't. But there is a list according to Alexa Note they put myspace at #13.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Rinikusu]

Ditto. My band has a page there and we've set up numerous shows with other bands coming through town strictly through myspace. I don't even bother updating our regular website anymore because the myspace site does everything we need it to.. for now.

Do now.

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't own our music.

Do now. You gave it to them. At least those three songs.

The next Fox News theme might sound familiar...

Re:Do now.

[robolemon]

They don't own it, the copyright holders still do.

It's just that the copyright holders can't prevent them from doing anything at all with their works, including selling them on CDs (or as digital downloads) it would seem.

Re:Do now.

[pclminion]

Do now. You gave it to them. At least those three songs.

No. What they have is an irrevocable license to use and sublicense the work. They don't own it, but they have all the same rights as the author to profit from it.

Re:Do now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some piece of web page with no signatures at all, doesn't really make a contract :)

Re:Do now.

[lucas_picador]

Exactly. Hence "nonexclusive". You retain the copyright and can still license the work to others; but MySpace has a license to distribute your work too. This is kind of a no-brainer: you can't sue MySpace for broadcasting on the web the stuff you've posted to their site. That's the whole point. It does, however, point out the irony of the name: "MySpace". It's not your space, it's theirs: they pay for it, they put ads on it, and they can do what they want with it. Want to retain control over your personal profile? It's called a "personal web page" hosted on a server you pay for yourself.

Congratulations!

[pclminion]

Congratulations, Fox! You are now the owners of the largest softcore kiddy-porn site on the Internet!

Hannidate

[Edzor]

hmmm this will go well with Hannidate!!! where like minded right wing rednecks kind find that special one!

FoxSpace

[Altephfour]

This just in, FoxSpace (Formerly MySpace) declares any anti-bush posts or blogs to be hereby banned. Also, no gays allowed. The "Bi" and "Gay" catagories under sexual attraction will be removed at the soonest convenience. (Please note that this is in now way fact, just a little joke and play on foxnews)

Intermix, Inc sued for spyware violations

[gorbachev]

Intermix, Inc., the company that owns MySpace.com, is the very same company sued by NYS Attorney General for spyware violations. They also have a LONG history of spamming the universe.

Fox is just getting more crappy by the day.

Social Networking Starts by...

[isoprophlex]

Getting out of your bedroom and going to meet real people in person. Not over the internet! I had a myspace account for a little while. I deleted it about 2 months ago in disgust of how Tom kept adding himself back to my friends list!

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Carbonated Milk]

The posts are very entertaining. They're written by the collective lovechild of AOL and GameFAQs users.

True but...

[Anonymous Coward]

When Fox/MySpace decides to have their lawyers tell you "Forget it!" when you ask for a cut of the profits from a product with your content on it, do you have the time and money to prove it's not a contract?

This is the problem with these website TOS and other such agreements. Whether or not they are legal is usually irrelevant. Once they accept, users have no choice but to submit since they don't generally have the resources to fight it.

And The Scariest Thing Is...

[Tofuy]

The social networking of MySpace is one of the things which makes the internet wonderful. Our forms of communication are some of our most important rights today and if you don't like the way something is run, organized, or created, then you can go find a version that's more suitable, at least on the internet. What FOX News, specificaly that bastard Rupert Murdoch, says with this buy out is your means to communicate and express are no longer your own.

I see this as the first step in ending the right to community property. Musicians and garage bands who have put .mp3's up on my space, make sure FOX doesn't steal your work and claim copyright over it. I wouldn't be surprised if they used some stolen .mp3's as the basis for the music of their next horribly political sitcom/cartoon granting the creater no rights or residuals. This is disgusting and it's going to extand well past underground music. I don't think it's conspiracy theory to guess that they'll be using the vast collection of MySpace user info in some evil, dark, republican, political scheme. It may not be likely but, once they realise the potential, it certainly is possible.

I see a bleak future in which people create media they don't actually own. I hope every single MySpace user terminates their account. But that probably won't happen.

Re:And The Scariest Thing Is...

[MrPerfekt]

Wow, that _is_ severely conspiracy theory.

I doubt just because News Corp. (not Fox News, you shmuck) wants to own a highly successful site that has millions of people looking at it per day so they can plaster 20th Century Fox (the movie studio) and Fox (the tv network) ads all over it that they'll seriously start claiming they own everything that every user posts on the site. That's quite simply ludicris and they'd be violating many laws when they did it. The nature of that crime makes it pretty easy to hold them responsible for. So take off your tin-foil hat please.

Hey Great..

[DroopyStonx]

Maybe they'll finally get the know-how to fix the fucking thing.

That site has the shittiest coding I've ever seen... the thing's down at least once a day (not counting maintenance).

1/10 page views will get you a "Sorry! An error has occurred."

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[damsa]

Probably because you have no friends. And that you are over the age of 12.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, if only they could a) afford decent programmers

Actually they can afford decent programmers. I interviewed with them and the salary they offered was very competitive. I turned it down for other reasons, many of which might be obvious to you if you visit the site.

Nothing against them really, as they seemed like good people. I just felt like I'd constantly be embarrassed every time I had to explain to someone where I worked.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[wizarddc]

I can vouch for this man's story, as basically give a big ditto, on all the points he listed. All of this happened with me, too. It's seriously worth it.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[x102output]

simply put, it's computers injected into our sex lives. search engines at use on uploaded personality samples to rapidly get to people we think we would find interesting. it's about time we have the google of our dating lives. bars are getting obsolete

the spin is in already!

[dsands1]

So this morning, after reading this post, I made a bulletin on myspace letting all my "friends" know what had happened as far as the sale of myspace was concerned. During the course of the day several friends reposted it to all of their friends in the form of myspace bulletins. Well, I come home this evening and log... guess what? All of our bulletins have been deleted and there's a nice note from Tom up top stating: "don't worry myspace isn't going to change or shut down, and no one's profiles are going to get deleted. we are not charging and i'm not leaving myspace... things are going good !"

Well isn't that nice. Great way to inspire confidence by censoring/del0rting our posts. =/

Re:Goodbye good service...

[Anonymous Coward]

what good service? it's run on ColdFusion, for crying out loud. it's the cesspool of the internet.

Re:Why haven't I heard of the 5th most popular sit

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you don't know much about the internet. Obviously its like 1999 again. And its gonna pass you by.