MySpace's Trip to The Top

One of yesterday's most commented stories was the report that MySpace.com has recently topped the charts for at least one measure of Internet popularity — site visits, as measured by Web-metrics company Hitwise. Along with a hefty dose of scorn for the actual content driving those page views (and some challenges to the conventional wisdom about MySpace's audience), readers expressed respect — not all of it grudging — for the reasons that MySpace has succeeded as it has. The 360-plus comments readers contributed to the story add interesting insights as well as information about the backend system which supports all those pageviews. Read on for the Backslash summary of the conversation.

To the objection raised by reader extra the woos ("I find this difficult to believe. I would think that Google would have more visits than MySpace, for sure."), MattHawk provides a reason why those sites are difficult to compare: "Google's design is lightweight. MySpace does not even pretend to suffer from this convenience. Google might very well account for more unique visitors, but MySpace makes up for the visitors by having each page view result in a significantly greater amount of bandwidth usage. Not to mention, if Google is working in its optimum capacity, it minimizes page views mdash; if you only load the front page, and then find what you're looking on in the first page of search results, it doesn't generate many page hits."

Before getting deeper into the comments, though, a contribution from reader wh0pper on the same topic of accuracy in MySpace's site statistics is worth considering; thanks to selective data presentation, he writes, the recent ranking numbers could be wrong. "According to Yahoo!, HitWise compared all of MySpace's traffic numbers to only one of Yahoo's subdomains: mail. Yahoo claims they get 129 million unique visitors a month. The article goes on to state that 'the bottom line is that, unless research firms of all stripes disclose the data they use to conduct their analyses (along with their methodologies and tools) taking the 'facts' of these reports — or the subsequent retorts — at face value is not a big improvement over studying steaming sheep entrails under giddy, sputtering torchlight.'"

Not all the visitors on MySpace are actual people, either. Reader micheas wants to know "What percentage of the traffic is bots?" He explains "I received 55 friend requests today mdash; none of them from real people. (Well, I haven't looked at all of them, but the few I clicked on were from profiles that identified themselves as 18-22 single female, and all had lots of male 'friends' they all more or less looked like ads for dating services, promos for bands, etc.) ... It is kind of interesting that MySpace seems to hold up under all the spam, even though they don't seem to do much about it (or are at least losing the war badly)."

Reader l3v1 scoffs at the claim in the originally linked article that MySpace has "[seen] a 4300% increase in visits in just two short years," writing "Like that would mean anything. Anyway, a few more dozen Slashdot [posts] about MySpace and that figure could easily go to about twohundredgazillion percent."

However they're calculated (or generated), the numbers are nonetheless huge. Reader gluecode writes "I speak to the person who runs their (MySpace's) ad servers, every week. He tells me that they average 3.7 billion page views per day. They run a custom version of the Doubleclick 5 ad servers, almost 400 of these servers. But they have a issue of how to monetize this traffic. They are trying to find ways to do that. They have a lot of junk ad inventory. I hear that they are getting very much into the mobile space in the US and internationally mdash; video blogging, photo blogging etc. This way they can make at least two dollars per user month over mobile services. On another note, Microsoft is working with them very closely to convert their server farm from Cold Fusion to ASP.Net 2.0."

Reader Timbotronic comments on the note about switching to ASP.Net: "This is an interesting one. MySpace is written in ColdFusion but actually runs on the .NET version of BlueDragon [ newatlanta.com]. BlueDragon is a .NET (or Java) application that runs ColdFusion code as an alternative to Adobe's ColdFusion server. So what we have currently is a situation where:

1. Adobe can't really claim that MySpace is running ColdFusion because it's running in .NET on a competitor's server not theirs and
2. Microsoft isn't really crowing about MySpace running .NET because it's written in a competitor's language.

Not surprising that they're 'working closely' to fix that!"

Reader Gord laments for practical reasons the "bandwidth wastage" resulting from MySpace's popularity, writing "MySpace users accounted for nearly 10% (2GB) of my bandwidth usage last month from my general webserving box. Mostly by people using a direct link to a 4MB image for their background image. Fortunately this has been largely mitigated with an apache rewrite redirecting MySpace users to a polite message asking them to stop. However, this leads me to wonder how much bandwidth MySpace is sucking from non-MySpace servers just so users can have pretty background pages and other assorted images. Helping support Rupert Murdoch isn't something I'm happy to waste bandwidth on."

Other readers have their own reasons for negative views of the MySpace phenomenon. Reader eplossl, for instance, calls the site's success "worrisome," because "people don't seem to understand how potentially dangerous this is. Consider the sheer volume of details some people (read: children) put on their MySpace accounts. Parents should police this, but, all too often, they don't. The fact is that this service presents all too much possibility for children to get hurt. Consider also the single women all over who post their info online. Some of them realize that they shouldn't post that they live alone in an apartment in south-central LA, but others would very quickly post this sort of thing. Unfortunately, this again puts people at risk."

Reader caitsith01 speaks for many with an evaluation of MySpace as "for the most part intensely narcissistic and inane," and writes "People are presented with a tool for publishing absolutely anything, about any topic they choose. Instead of presenting thoughtful, creative or otherwise valuable content, the vast majority elect to pointlessly ramble about themselves in minute detail or engage in endless back and forth with other users about nothing in particular. Which is fine, but it shouldn't have the legitimacy of other web content. [...] Perhaps it's time to move past the blog hype and to consider some method for differentiating personal diaries (i.e., what used to be a personal homepage), social chit chat (i.e., what used to be a bulletin board, IRC, or IM activity), and publications with actual content. Right now the net is awash with an ever-expanding tide of rubbish and there is very little to assist in finding the few really interesting and high quality publications among the garbage. Ultimately it's depressing that, given the ability to communicate our ideas to anyone on earth, most of us can't come up with anything better than pictures of ourselves drinking too much and mass-produced but ineffectual rebelliousness."

Reader enjahova reacts viscerally to that sentiment, commenting "You are not alone in your argument. You are supported by medieval scholars who decried the rise of literacy, the government of the UK when the printing press was made, and many more anti-intellectual pessimists throughout history. They held your very same belief, what sort of chaos and tragedy will occur if everybody is literate? Peasants are dumb and uncultured, they will only pollute the literary pool. You say the same shit about the Internet. The only difference now is that we have search engines, computers, and instant communication to help us sort through the bullshit. People like you like to ignore the fact that if only one out of every 99 people posting to MySpace creates something worthwhile, that's one more worthwhile thing on the Internet to be found and shared."

NickFortune acknowledges that free-form online expression isn't always of great merit, but also shares a more optimistic view of its possibilities: "Alas, the price of giving people a tool for publishing whatever they want, is that people will use it to publish whatever they want. ... Stephen King once wrote "If you lift weights for an hour a day, you're going to grow muscles. If you sit down and write for an hour a day, you're going to learn how to write". Some of these bloggers you so deride are going to grow into people worth reading.

A similar argument from reader Sloppy: "[I]f MySpace is inane, it's because people are inane. MySpace is merely a microcosm. Go out and listen to people talking. At work, at a bar, whatever. You're going to hear pointless rambling.

On a completely different tack... you're looking at what people publish, and maybe not looking at what people are reading on MySpace — what they're getting out of it. That is a lot harder to figure out. What I found, when I signed up, was that it was a way to keep up with my local music scene. In that regard, it has been valuable .. or at least (heh) no more inane than the local music scene itself (which maybe isn't saying much, I can't make up my mind about that)."

Several readers expressed even greater appreciation for the site; playingwithknives, for instance, writes "Im 34; my beautiful, wonderful, amazing girlfriend I met through MySpace is 33; my MySpace friends are all mid 20s to low 40s. Ive met and socialized with some, and romanced a few too and its all been pretty damn cool so far. ... I just avoided the kiddies/teens/emos with a simple age filter on searches and it actually turned out to be one of the better websites about for meeting new people."

Content aside, several readers outlined reasons to believe the growth of MySpace is far from over, starting with its ownership. Reader Animats raises an interesting point about where MySpace fits into a broader landscape of media ownership, calling its success a "triumph of 'old media.'"

"Alexa says that the top five sites today are, in order, Yahoo, MSN, Google, MySpace, and eBay. Of those, only MySpace is owned by an 'old media' company, and only MySpace is growing significantly. This may be the first time that a top Internet site was owned by an 'old media' company. (MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation [ www.newscorp]). It makes sense; MySpace is to the Internet as tabloid journalism is to the newspaper industry. News Corp now has a leading position in both."

Zaphod2016, sees a parallel in the search engine world because of MySpace's current popularity, writing "Recently, Slashdot ran this article about Ask.com's growing market share. CEO Jim Lanzone has complained that his service is superior to competitors', but has not yet approached the market share of the Google-ocracy. The reason? Like Xerox before it, Google has become a part of our common vernacular in 2006 (to google, I googled it, etc). Some expect Google will remain on top for this reason alone, others claim that superior technology is how Google became #1 in the first place, and so, Ask.com has a chance. So what does this have to do with MySpace? MySpace currently finds itself in a similar position; unlike rivals such as Facebook or Friendster (remember them?) their market share is simply in a league all its own. ... With a social network, I must invest a significant amount of time in order to setup my profile, and the experience is dependent on how many friends (or similar-minded people) I can find also using the service. Once I have become comfortable using one service, I might be hesitant to 'start over' at another, especially if none of my friends were using it either."

Partly because of that time investment in familiarization, reader LittleBigScript calls MySpace "the new Internet," writing:

"I think you all aren't going to like this, but MySpace is beginning to become what people (under 30) mean when people ask if you are 'on the Internet.' This is similar to when people ask if you have a phone, [and] they mean a cell phone. I saw a movie preview yesterday on TV where it didn't list a website, but a MySpace address. It may be a good thing that your content provider will become a social networking site, so you could look at your content in virtually the same way on every computer which is connected."

One of the most concise arguments for MySpace's success comes from walnutmon, who writes "What I rarely see about MySpace, is what a brilliant idea it is. Not everyone knows how to create a website, but most people have the capacity, and interest to learn how to use MySpace. Instead of looking down on myspacers perhaps those of us who know how to use the Internet should learn how to cater to those who are not technically savvy. Isn't that the idea of selling technology? Making things that normally wouldn't be accessible to everyone accessible?"

Cgenman lays out a similar argument, which could be a manifesto for anyone trying to start an online community: "Basically, MySpace does all of those sappy things that the Internet was supposed to do years ago. The content is all by users. It's all about helping people network with each other. It appeals to people's vanity as well as their curiosity. It happens to have a great underserved niche (indie bands) that tent pegs it even if they aren't the primary users. It's naughty. It's viral.

Basically, put control in the hands of your users, and let them work for the communal site. Find some underserved niche and add features to support their usage habits. Make sure everyone joins. Don't censor interesting stuff. Be a community builder rather than a content provider."

Thanks to everyone whose comments informed the discussion, in particular those readers quoted above.

Comments

Grr...

[1WingedAngel]

s/mdash;/—/

Re:Grr...

[spun]

Hehe, and here I was thinking that mdash was just some very prolific poster to whom all the others were responding.

Reason Why

[neonprimetime]

Seeing a 4300% increase in visits in just two short years

Sorry, but the real reason for this is you can pick up 14-17 year old girls.

Re:Reason Why

[Kesch]

You like dating 40-yr old FBI agents too!?

I thought I was the only one.

Re:Reason Why

[neonprimetime]

Actually I was implying that that's what others do, not myself. Just had to clarify so that the government doesn't red flag my /. account.

Re:Reason Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late, buddy.

Re:Reason Why

[beckerist]

Rupert Murdoch is feeding us subliminal messaging through his Fox and Friends campaign. I'm now hungry for bad grammar and pre-teens... mmmmm Myspace

Re:Reason Why

[linvir]

I'm now hungry for bad grammar and pre-teens... mmmmm Myspace

Or more elegantly put:

mmmmm internets

Re:Reason Why

[apflwr3]

Sorry, but the real reason for this is you can pick up 14-17 year old girls.

No, the sheer numbers are because MySpace is a way 14-to-17 year old BOYS can pick up 14-17 year old girls. And vice versa. And the age range is more like 15-25, but why quibble.

I know sensationalist news stories and "think of the children" types make it sound like pedophiles lurk under every bush but come on. The real reason Myspace is such a success is because they figured out (or stumbled upon) how to do a social network site that appeals to the high school mentality.

IMO it's the 1-on-1 approve/deny friends system which lets them form cliques (and shut people out), as well as the top 8 which lets you create an inner circle. Friendster failed because when you're one person's friend you're friends with all of their friends, and so on. Myspace allows the user to be a selective snob.

(I also believe the clunky style appeals to the teen mind more than any slick, well-designed Web 2.0 portal ever could. A typical Myspace page is like a locker or Trapper Keeper covered with stickers, notes, pictures, doodles and other crap... A complete eyesore to us adults with refined taste, but exactly what a 15-year old wants.)

Re:Reason Why

[Anonymous Coward]

This is every dirty old farts dream to solicit 14-17 year olds.

Re:Reason Why

[mkw87]

Sorry to inform you, but the Government browses at +4.

The key is in the search

[RunFatBoy.net]

I always thought that MySpace recorded just the right meta-search elements to keep me interested. I tried Orkut and others and none provided a search for individuals who graduated from my highschool.

Whenenever I enter a new place, whether physical or virtual, I always look for familiar faces. MySpace allows me to easily look for those people.

Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ -- Exercise for the rest of us.

Re:The key is in the search

[`Sean]

I always thought that MySpace recorded just the right meta-search elements to keep me interested.

Too bad the search engine on their site is horribly slow and results in timeouts about 9 out of every 10 times I attempt to use it to stalk^H^H^H^H^H search for friends.

Re:The key is in the search

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah i only use thier search feature from an anonymmous profile that I set up just so I could look up and see what ex-girlfriends are doing. had to use a non-"me" account setup under a free yahoo email (there are 'frowned upon' scripts to tell you who has visited your myspace page and how many times). it all started for one girl in particular, but that just made me want to look at all the old ones (well, both!)... posting anon, because im kinda creeping myself out!

attn timothy

[bunions]

I'm actually enjoying the backslash stories, but whatever tool you're using to write these things up and/or the submission mechanism keeps adding these weird little formatting weirnesses in. It'd be nice to see that fixed mdash hopfully soon.

Re:attn timothy

[linvir]

I don't know what you're complaining about mdash; I can't see any problem.

Re:attn timothy

[rsadelle]

And could you use the nifty gray lines to the left of the quotes instead of italics? The italics are hard on the eyes.

Re:attn timothy

[rholliday]

I don't know what you're complaining about mdash; I can't see any problem.

The — they're using renders as they intended in IE. In Firefox it shows up as mdash;. I believe that — displays properly in both browsers.

The comments strip out —, but it looks vaguely like: --

Re:attn timothy

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a joke. As in "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

regurgitation?

[mcrbids]

I don't get it. Not only does Slashdot not actually provide news content, now they're going to provide coverage of the reporting on the news?

This just seems like regurgitated chow.

Yuk. These REALLY turn me off.

Re:regurgitation?

[WilliamSChips]

Preferences, Homepage, turn off Backslash.

Re:regurgitation?

[MankyD]

Yuk. These REALLY turn me off.

So go into your settings and turn Backslash off. I rather like it myself. It fosters meaningful discussion (outside of offtopic posts like these.)

Re:regurgitation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashback formula:

Find a recent slashdot article that received 300 or more comments.

Write up a flamebait ladden summary (or editoral - lol) misrepresting some posts (one good tactic - assert that because someone posted something, it is widely accepted by the public at large).

Hope for 300 or more comments becauses ad revenue is dropping (Thanks AdBlock!).

Re:regurgitation?

[Zaphod2016]

Point to ponder: I tend to ramble and repeat myself often anyway. If /. wants to "dupe" my comments it's pretty much the same experience, just with less work for me.

Re:regurgitation?

[drinkypoo]

I don't get it. Not only does Slashdot not actually provide news content, now they're going to provide coverage of the reporting on the news?

Ever subscribe to a mailing list? Given your /.UID I would sure hope so... know how you can get it as a digest? This is just like that, except that it only highlights the comments that the slashdot editorship cares about. (I've had very-highly-commented +5 comments not get into backslash; I can only assume that I'm the victim of some kind of conspiracy.)

I rather like it, even when I was reading the story in question. It's a second chance to make a salient point, and it makes a nice recap. Someday we're going to wish all slashdot stories had a backslash so we can browse them for light views. If it ever becomes well-indexed (even googling slashdot is an exercise in frustration) it's going to be an amazing treasure trove of technical information and historical data.

Re:regurgitation?

[Kesch]

Quick, I need 6 coordinated mods to give this man a +5, Offtopic.

Re:regurgitation?

[UglyTool]

Quick, I need 6 coordinated mods to give this man a +5, Offtopic.

Ok...I'm in..what do I need to do?

I will Ask Again!

[neonprimetime]

How did we get this Backlash stuff? Was there a vote that I missed?

Re:I will Ask Again!

[mr_flea]

It's Slashdot's new automatic-dupe function. It takes all the work out of duping articles!

Re:I will Ask Again!

[Zilverfire]

Miss a vote? What did you leave the country for a 2 years or something?

I don't understand what is going on here

[bconway]

Is Slashdot just reposting people's comments from previous stories as a story? If we wanted to read these comments wouldn't we... go read them in the thread?

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[daniil]

If we wanted to read these comments wouldn't we... go read them in the thread?

I've been left with the impression that the majority of Slashdotters don't actually read the comments. But if the informed (YMMV) comments are the main advantage Slashdot has over, say, Digg, then why not try and bring them to the attention of those who don't normally read the comments?

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[neonprimetime]

I've been left with the impression that the majority of Slashdotters don't actually read the comments.

Maybe I'm just way out in left field, but I typically read the comments, not the article.

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[trix7117]

Huh...I always thought the majority of Slashdotters don't actually read the articles.

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[Spazntwich]

Maybe Slashdotters just plain don't read.

That would explain quite a bit of what goes on around here.

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Slashdot readers famously don't read the articles. They don't read the summaries. Often, the comments for a story will include multiple posts about misinterpreting the headline. Now, apparently, the comments go unread. People, WHY ARE YOU HERE?

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[Amouth]

wait. i thought the idea was to not read the artical and only read the comments and post like you know what your saying even if you sware that a mouse can eat a house in one bite..

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[Acy James Stapp]

Nope, apparently if you read the article, you ignore the comments, and if you comment, you don't read the article. It's simple, see?

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[linvir]

We're all bots, you insensitive clod.

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[togofspookware]

I know exactly what you mean. Yesterday my sister backed the car over our garden hose and now it leaks all over the driveway whenever she goes to water the flowers!

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[zotz]

[Maybe I'm just way out in left field, but I typically read the comments, not the article.]

I don't know if it is left field or right field, but welcome to the outfield. ~;-)

all the best,

drew
(da idea man)

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[Sir_Lewk]

I find that I actually learn more about the news item if I read what other people have said about it. They're modded "Insightful" for a reason.

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[r3m0t]

You must be old here.

Re:I don't understand what is going on here

[sdibb]

Me too. http://alterslash.org/

It can't be fixed

[neonprimetime]

It can't be fixed ... It's a Virus

Re:It can't be fixed

[OakDragon]

lol no it's not a virus!

Insightful is relative

[MikeRT]

Take a lot of the political arguments that get started on slashdot and digg. Talk about some of the most unnuanced garbage out there worthy of the bowels of MySpace. "Conservative=Fascist=Republican" and "Democrat=Socialist=Liberal" is what passes for "intelligent and insightful." Most of the time, it's just repeating commonly accepted ideas without any sort of critical eye for whether they are right or not.

So please... while it is true that MySpace can be utterly inane, the more "elite" sites are just as bad.

Re:Insightful is relative

[jZnat]

Haven't you heard of the extension to Godwin's Law? From TFL:

As the length of a thread approaches infinity, the probability of something being compared to Hitler or Nazism approaches one. On a similar note, as the length of a political discussion approaches infinity, the probability of Republicans being compared to fascists or Democrats to hippies approaches one.

Yay BackSlash!

[HanClinto]

I'm very happy with the two BackSlash stories that I've read this week. I don't hold MySpace in high regard, and so trolling through hundreds of Slashdot comments about the story yesterday was not something I was willing to do. This BackSlash let me partake of the discussion without *totally* ignoring work for the hours it would have taken to distill this summary myself, and I really appreciate that.

Thanks, Timothy! You're like a secretary preparing an executive summary for an on-the-go Slashdot reader like myself. It makes me feel all important and stuff. :)

Re:Yay BackSlash!

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Wait, you don't care for MySpace, but you want to read comments about it? Why?

Enough with the backslash, we know how to read at +4 already.

Re:Yay BackSlash!

[inKubus]

I think what they are trying to do is show all the lurker users who don't comment that there's a lively and sort of, uh, intellectual discussion going on. I wonder what the percentage of regular slashdot users who don't comment is. When I first started reading slashdot, in like 1997 or something, I didn't comment much and I think a lot of people are like that. They just read the summary and the article and move on. Then I started at a really boring job and I didn't have anything to do. So I started reading the comments. Then, because there were so many interesting points, I had to put in my 2 broad coppers. Then I started Karma-Whoring. Now I'm a moderator.

Re:Yay BackSlash!

[jeremyds]

Essentially, all BackSlash is doing is showing a majority of the same content as if you were reading the comments at a threshold of 4 or 5. I could personally do without Timothy's comments.

Re:Yay BackSlash!

[SuperBanana]

I'm very happy with the two BackSlash stories that I've read this week. I don't hold MySpace in high regard, and so trolling through hundreds of Slashdot comments about the story yesterday was not something I was willing to do.

That's mostly due to moderators not using "redundant" enough to discourage inane groupthink. 40 people say the same thing, and 6-7 of them get modded to 5, Insightful.

Re:Yay BackSlash!

[HanClinto]

Wait, you don't care for MySpace, but you want to read comments about it? Why?

Is that a serious question? I'll assume it is and answer your question as such.

As a developer on the Internet, I need to be aware of what's going on if I want to "keep with the times". I don't like MSN or Yahoo! either, but that doesn't mean as a Google freak I'm going to bury my head in the sand and ignore that very large chunk of the Internet. I want to understand the current movements on the 'net and what's hot, what's declining, what works, what doesn't, etc. MySpace is *incredibly* popular, and as much as I personally detest a lot of what's on there, I can't ignore it without shooting myself (as a developer) in the proverbial foot.

Enough with the backslash, we know how to read at +4 already.

I guess, but there's this little thing called "mod points", and so I try to browse at +0 so that I can help get rid of annoying trolls, redundant un-funnies, and Nazi propoganda. As much as I'd like to re-set my browsing settings each time I want to read a MySpace story, I just don't have the patience for it. I like the BackSlash summary, I like Timothy's interposed comments, and I like Slashdot.

*walks off muttering "don't feed the trolls... don't feed the trolls..."*

Re:Yay BackSlash!

[tf23]

I'm very happy with the two BackSlash stories that I've read this week.

I'll second that.

Re:Yay BackSlash!

[tf23]

I wonder what the percentage of regular slashdot users who don't comment is.

I think it's quite high, more-so then you'd think. If you look in some of some of CmdrTaco's journals I think he talks about it a number of times. I've linked it, but I'm honestly too lazy to go back and try to find anything specific.

Re:Yay BackSlash!

[heinousjay]

You spend your mod points punishing people? How negative of you.

Re:Yay BackSlash!

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually second this. I'm very busy, and although I try to read alot of comments, it helps to have a summary thrown in to catch the good bits I miss due to a busy life. Plus, it sometimes seems to throw in a few very under-modded comments. I like them so much I actually went out of my way to request that the section hangs around.

If you don't like them, turn them off. It is possibly the -only- section you can do so in and still know that you will never miss anything you couldn't get by reading other stories.

Peer-to-Peer Social Networking

[dbc001]

I'd really like to see a peer-to-peer social networking site. Maybe you would broadcast a tarball of your page to your 1st-level friends or something? That would eliminate some of the problems with spam, security, and privacy. And then we don't have to worry about ads (or Rupert Murdoch for that matter) It would definitely be an interesting experiment.

Re:Peer-to-Peer Social Networking

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to believe that the hot chick down the street is even going to know what a tarball is.

Re:Peer-to-Peer Social Networking

[Ethan Allison]

Yes, the daily Rupert Murdoch-proofing is getting to be a pain.

Re:Peer-to-Peer Social Networking

[westlake]

I'd really like to see a peer-to-peer social networking site. Maybe you would broadcast a tarball of your page to your 1st-level friends or something?

I know the computer Geek is supposed to lead a somewhat insular existence but this is ridiculous.

Re:Peer-to-Peer Social Networking

[Javaman59]

I know the computer Geek is supposed to lead a somewhat insular existence...

On the contrary, I've met all my best friends on Slashdot.

MySpace instead of TV?

[intrico]

Interesting coincidence how at the same time that MySpace reached the "most visited site status" ever, the major TV networks saw their "lowest ratings week" ever.

Re:MySpace instead of TV?

[chiskop]

That's very interesting [record low viewership figures for US TV].

Most of the rest of the world would have had record high viewership over the last month, I would imagine.

Just an observation.

i hate myspace

[jaydonnell]

I have never seen the appeal of myspace. The blogging system is very poor and peoples custom designs are horrible. It seems to me that myspace is purely visual with very little substance. Apparently this appeals to a whole lot of people, but I am not one of them! I really miss the days of the old community sites (half-empty.org was my fav). I've been trying to find a modern site that has the same feel of those old community sites; debates, conversations, topics of interest, etc. Recently i found a new one called soulcast (in my sig) and so far it seems great. Anyone know of any other great community sites that aren't aimed at kids (by kids i mean 15-early 20's)?

Re:i hate myspace

[jb.hl.com]

It's because it gives teens what they want; to be able to talk to each other about shit, make their pages outlandish and stupid, post OMG PONIES bulletins etc etc etc.

Meanwhile, the people who just use it to keep in touch with friends and meet new people get along fine. I mean, I found my girlfriend through MySpace, and my page isn't stupid/outlandish :)

Re:i hate myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

If you live in a metro area, you can find and hook up with TONS of hot girls if you got the stuff.
I have a friend that hooks up with a new one every week from myspace.

I can't be bothered, I'm busy watching full seasons of every TV show I never watched,
downloaded via bittorrent.

Re:i hate myspace

[bigtimepie]

I agree, partially.
As far as just blogging goes, myspace doesn't compare with some of the other sites. But it does have wide appeal because of it's music/video/etc features.

The best use of myspace though, imho, is for networking and promo. As a musician I've used myspace to promote my band and have spread exposure to thousands of people all over who never would have heard me otherwise. This also lead to good online sales as as well.

I like myspace.

Re:i hate myspace

[drpimp]

This is your right to hate it. I don't argue that pages can be completely corrupted by unskilled people by adding styles and animated gif's gone wild, I am not sure blogging and design was the intent of the site. It even states in their agreement you are not to modify the design of the site. BUt some odd million people do. But aimed at 15+ community or not, there are MANY and when I say that I mean MANY people of older age that actually are telling the truth as far as age. I am not saying the 20 yr olds that say they are 99, I am talking about people 40+. Do a search for yourself and you will see. I don't LIKE MySpace entirely, nor do I HATE it entirely. One must come to the realization, that it does exist, and it IS popular. So it must be something that people find entertaining at best, rather than avenues to depict anything remotely interesting besides breasts and funny videos. It's kinda like the real word, some people love it, some people hate it, and some people could give a flying F^$# less. The question I ensue is "How long will it be able to stay so popular?"

As far as wanting another site for debates, conversations, topics? Ummm slashdot does a pretty good job at that. I too miss halfempty. James' flash animations were top notch for the time. Sorry I don't have any other links for you as far as that goes.

Re:i hate myspace

[jaydonnell]

that was kind of my point. myspace clearly appeals to a ton of people. I'm just not one of them. btw, what was your nick on .5e?

Re:i hate myspace

[ben there...]

I think it just gave people an excuse to get on the internet and express something about themselves. They don't know about web design. Before myspace, they didn't want to know. Ever try teaching somebody who doesn't know anything about computers how to design websites? They may say they want to learn, but they don't. (speaking generally here)

So you get crappy myspace pages. But at least they felt comfortable with finally making a personal page, and maybe it even got some people into email or IM. It definitely got a lot of my non-techie friends to log on to a computer more often. If you asked them to design a whole blog or site just about themselves, they probably (1) wouldn't know how to do it, (2) wouldn't be comfortable with it's open-endedness, and (3) might feel like they were being narcissistic.

There are a lot of products and services that fill the same role: making something they could have done anyway acceptable to the masses. Take the iPod for example. There were Rios before that, but they were just techie gadgets that only slightly interested my friends when I showed it to them. If instead I showed them an iPod, they'd want one. The same thing would happen with a personal site. Before myspace, they'd think it was funny if you made a site about yourself. Now everybody does it.

Re:i hate myspace

[drpimp]

I didn't have a nick. I just frequented it. I am assuming you are refering to Half Empty right? Much different to what it used to be that's for sure.

Re:i hate myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

You should check this new thing called usenet.

Re:i hate myspace

[rtb61]

Popularity can be an odd thing when it comes to old world media companies. Consider the number of computers and IP addresses that News Corp controls, used correctly they will run up traffic results. I seen mypsace references in weekly comics in newspapers to drive interest among children.

How many of the supposed members really exist and are not just fillers to make up numbers. Myspace is being put through the old world media hype machine, it is the most popular because they say so it in all their other content distribution chanels but is it really all that popular.

I still see myspace as the space of desperation, a sad and sorry site full of people desperate to be perceived as being popular. It will last as long as the hype and will die an ugly death as soon as the perception grows that only desperate and tragically needy types maintain a corporate, we pawned you, token web presence of personal insignificance.

Newscorp has certainly put it's trolls to work promoting myspace in all the forums they can find, of course now they have to find a way of making money from it. By the way, what is happening to the licence fees for all the copyrighted content that Newscorp is distributing while it generates advertising revenue from what basically appears to be a micropiracy site, think micropayments i.e. borrowing bits and pieces of other peoples content to sell with out ever paying anything.

Re:i hate myspace

[jaydonnell]

nope, wrong site :)

it was half-empty.org and it's no longer around. We had a very active but small community which mostly came from a front page post on /.

Slashdot going for the easy traffic

[chia_monkey]

We're on to your sneaky ways oh mighty Slashdot editors. Put up a story with the words "MySpace" in the article here and there and you're bound to get some spillover. When do we get to add our pictures to our profiles here now?

Re:Slashdot going for the easy traffic

[neonprimetime]

When do we get to add our pictures to our profiles here now?

I'm looking forward to seeing the videos of all the sexy /.ers

Re:Slashdot going for the easy traffic

[dulitz]

I'm looking forward to seeing the videos of all the sexy /.ers

You mean both of us?

Re:Slashdot going for the easy traffic

[chia_monkey]

*shudder* Did you have to say that? I WAS eating dinner but not anymore...

Re:Slashdot going for the easy traffic

[nolife]

You want to see some ./ people in action? Hop over to google and search for lan party images. Here is a link to get you started.

Be warned, they are not pretty ;)

Re:Slashdot going for the easy traffic

[tehcyder]

I'm looking forward to seeing the videos of all the sexy /.ers

You mean both of us?

Hi 2 u 2 babes wot r u wearing lol.

Re:Slashdot going for the easy traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

this and this.
Now you sleep well tonight honey :-)

Re:Slashdot going for the easy traffic

[neonprimetime]

And I thought everybody on /. looked like this. I am disappointed. I think I may move over to MySpace.

Yep.

[uberjoe]

It's called metanews. TV does it all the time.

Re:Yep.

[mcrbids]

Slashdot is already meta-news. This is meta-meta-news. There's a point where it becomes just so much navel gazing, and gets ridiculous.

This is that point.

What about Netcraft?

[Anonymous Coward]

...the report that MySpace.com has recently topped the charts for at least one measure of Internet popularity -- site visits...

Not until Netcraft confirms it! IIRC, MySpace is ranked #77...

divide page hits by 12

[SaberTaylor]

I have a blog on Livejournal and I might hit the site 15 times for posting 1 entry and 1 comment with all the previews and re-edits.

Join my Facebook group: "MYSPACE is a Time Machine that takes you back to 1996."
Description: MYSPACE.COM is a Time Machine that takes you back to the Internet in 1996 in terms of web design (awful) and user gullibility (awful) and the mindless forwarding of unfounded nonsense.

Re:divide page hits by 12

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd join, but I don't attend Ohio State and your group is not a global group. Try again with a global group and I think people will be interested.

Re:divide page hits by 12

[swid27]

Heh, one of my friends started a Facebook group along similar lines a couple weeks ago: Facebook sucks, but not as much as MySpace

Re:divide page hits by 12

[Kremit]

Awesome... I was about to start a group similar to that. I just joined.

If myspace were a country...

[auspiv]

It would be the 12th most populated country with a current network of 93,112,039 people.

Re:If myspace were a country...

[crossmr]

A lot of those are bots, bands, movies, duplicates, etc.

Re:If myspace were a country...

[tehcyder]

If myspace were a country you could just nuke it from orbit.

What's the point of "backslash"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I understand the point of these Backslash stories. If it's a slow news day and you a repeat discussion of a particular topic, why not just Dupe the way you guys usually do?

New Slashbacks - good job

[BTWR]

Hey Timothy, not sure if you do all of these yourself, but I enjoy the quick-turnaround of these posts. You basically save me from scrolling the "Only +5 posts" by giving the highlights, with narrative background. Good job. It's now my 2nd favorite part of the site (after games.slashdot.org)

Groaaann... More Myspace crap

[gd23ka]

Honestly, even if a few dozen of you respond here, what percentage of slashdot's
readership is still in college? You are seriously out of sync with readership
demographics here slashdot.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=190912&cid=157 03542

So, we all hate MySpace.

[Scyth3]

Well, I will admit I hate MySpace and wished it'd die like a bug. However, none of us are really doing much about it aside from saying how much we hate it. I created a better version of MySpace, and it's called "Flingr". When I started to code the site, my primary focus was on lightweight page browsing, and security. I easily accomplished this, but there's a twist to it. That twist is that no news medium is willing to cover a site which can knock out MySpace (not even TechCrunch, even though they said they would). So, the question is, how long will it take for some better service to take out MySpace? It's going to be near impossible especially with the billions Mr. Murdoch has. Also the fact that the news will continue to push for MySpace due to its ties to Fox.

Re:So, we all hate MySpace.

[SpaceCadetTrav]

Here's what really happened: You created a clone product in a very competitive marketplace that you don't understand, and then you didn't even know how to market it.

Re:So, we all hate MySpace.

[FLEB]

Like the person who got here first said: It's a nonissue. It's like trying to take on McDonalds in burgers. It was a good idea when it started, it had the magic mix to get popular, and now it's entrenched. Assuming no outside difficulties, it's either going to continue to languish with its core crowd (like LiveJournal... let's watch the emokids grow up!) or end up toppling of its own stagnation sometime down the line. It would take not only a "MySpace Killer" clone to come along, but also a massive failure in a number of respects on their part.

You're better off thinking up the next Flickr, YouTube, Google Video, or Google (et al) Maps remix, or more likely, the next next big thing.

Really, I think the next big hit is going to be in popularizing either music or video. Podcasting, as a whole, was close, but it took off more as a movement unto itself than anything centered around one particular place (plus, I think iTunes kind of Microsofted a lot of developers).

Bandwidth Wastage?

[tlhIngan]

Haven't we learned enough about bandwidth leechers to cause them significant pain already?

I mean, the fact that they're direct-linking an image and using it as a background gives the owner of the website tremendous power over the users. For example, a really annoying background that makes all text unreadable? High contrast checkers can do that, or anigifs that flash incessantly. Or redirect the link to the popular "rgb.swf" (a really annoying flash that plays the Axel F theme and draws stripes of bars alternating red-green-blue constantly.).

Or heck, put up an image of something that's against MySpace TOS and report the site to MySpace!

It works so well for sellers doing the same on eBay (imagine their dismay when that "cool TV" photo they stole is replaced by one that's broken? or similar).

Or maybe redirect to a page that "breaks out" of the page and forwards them to the MySpace front page or something?

A lot of power can be had by bandwidth leeches...

Re:Bandwidth Wastage?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this different from the average MySpace page?

Re:Bandwidth Wastage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually just change pictures to being 1px*1px white (they will get rid of that so fast...)
If it is a movie or such create on that is only one frame that says "I stole bandwidth from . They told my mom. Now I am grounded for a week and have to pick up the dog poop." Free advertising and a warning to others.

I, For One

[PhilKenSebben]

Welcome Tom as our new ruler.

NewsCorp Old Media?

[/dev/trash]

Well if you say so.

They need to change technology

[n3v]

The .Net and CFM can't hang.. Mad exceptions.. Like every click is waiting 30 seconds for an error page. HELLO?? If they knew how to program maybe it would be a LOT faster and reliable. Myspace is really going downhill as far as that is concerned.. I'm sure some more hardware could help them out too.

Who moves from CFM to .Net? *barf*

Re:They need to change technology

[linvir]

Who moves from CFM to .Net? *barf*

America's favourite website, apparently.
O wise masters! You have much to teach us!

MySpace vs Yahoo Controversy

[Anonymous Coward]

Compete just published an alternative take on this MySpace vs. Yahoo story. Based on Compete's data Yahoo attracts 64M more people a month than MySpace - clearly establishing Yahoo as king of the court. The interesting counter is that MySpace did in fact surpass Yahoo in-terms of page views in January. permalink is: http://blog.compete.com/index.php/2006/07/13/myspa ce-vs-yahoo-hitwise/

facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

really, since when is facebook "not remembered"? as mean as it might be to say this, myspace, for the longest time, had been the "poor man's facebook". it sucked and still does. however, facebook is now open to high school students as well, so that's not really a concern. but the point is that originally, facebook was limited only to people who went to 4-year colleges and universities. this, already, filtered the user pool in a very good way, and meant that the majority of people would not post fake shit up.
whoever says that myspace wins on the "search" features obviously has never used the search feature of other sites. click on the artist such as Led Zeppelin listed in your "favorite music" section, and what do you get on myspace? all profiles that have ANY of the words (i.e. either Led, or Zeppelin, or both) somewhere in their profile. yeah, that's useful. now let's see how it works on facebook. we do the same thing, and it returns only users who have actually listed "Led Zeppelin" in their favorite music list. AMAZING. factor in speed, and facebook beats out myspace entirely. no shitty backgrounds, no overloaded movie clips and music files. just a plain, regular profile that cleanly and quickly provides you with the information you want.
oh, and there are no pedophiles or self-promoting porn stars on it either. that's always a good thing.
and for those using mozilla-based browsers, here's a little conditional css you can use to clean up myspace profiles - works like a charm.

@-moz-document domain(myspace.com) {
 
body, body * {
  background: #fff !important;
  color: #000 !important;
  border-color: #ccc !important;
}
 
body * a {
  color: blue !important;
}
 
object, embed, iframe {
  display:none !important;
  visibility: collapse !important;
}
 
img {
  max-width: 300px !important;
}
 
input {
  z-index: 1000 !important;
}
 
.contactTable a img {
  visibility:visible !important;
}
 
body * {
  filter:alpha(opacity=100) !important;
  -moz-opacity:1 !important;
  opacity:1 !important;
  -khtml-opacity:1 !important;
}
 
#header {
  height: auto !important; } }

The Bandwidth metric is easy to explain

[Wry Cooter]

Practically every MySpace site pushes an MP3 stream to you. Constantly. As long as that page is open in a tab in your browser.

Compare that to all of the other browsing one may do, where the bandwidth hogs are mostly annoying Flash ads, and most of the real content, text and jpegs, has loaded before you read the first sentence.

It's still better than TV

[Anonymous Coward]

and most of our culture for that matter. Maybe we're just lucky the rest of "the majority" hasn't shown up yet. It can only get worse as it gets more popular.

Am I an alien ?

[stud9920]

Though I use the internet daily, I have no contact at all with any person with a Myspace account. I don't even see what myspace's pitch is all about ? Social networking ? like each account has a contact list or something ? Have I lived on a desert island or something ?

360-plus comments, eh?

[Shippinator Mandy]

I wonder how many of those comments, if they came mostly from MySpace users, were in proper English? I'm guessing 10 at the most.

Drink it again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow reminds me of this video. I'm not one for gross videos, but I found the last half of that one to be pretty funny...

Redirects and Error pages

[cliath]

Did anyone mention all of the redirect pages MySpace has? Also, every 4 or 5 pages you visit on MySpace, you will get an error page, which is even more hits to add to the count.

You're a prime example...

[IANAAC]

This is why we think the greater percentage is still in college.

Why on earth would you post a link to your own offtopic diatribe?

Re:You're a prime example...

[gd23ka]

Why the hell should I not link to it? The way I see it is debatable whether it is off-topic.
As far as people getting sick and tired of the ceaseless mentioning of this college personals site,
that's mainly due to oversaturating the channels by stooping to every excuse just to put their
name on the main page. If I were to take the "we" serious in "why we think the greater percentage
is still in college" I would say that "we" is in big trouble.

There's a more "age appropiate" service for people out there which people might want to consider
and that would be http://www.openbc.org/ (Open Business Contacts).

triumph of old media??

[miracle]

triumph of old media?? errrr.......didn't newscorp simply *buy* MySpace? How exactly is that a "triumph"?

Psst, your mdash; is showing

[VGPowerlord]

I think some poor editor forgot the & in — Which is a shame, because — looks OK.

Despite some of the stupidity...

[Anonymous Coward]

...MySpace is a hell of a lot more intelligent than the WoW audience.

Discuss

Show me the money

[LargeWu]

Wake me up when they turn a profit. Page views are absolutely meaningless. I mean, I'm happy for them and all, and I think MySpace is a good thing, but unless they eventually start making money it ain't gonna last.

Curiosity..

[DarkDragonVKQ]

I know Firefox and Opera allow you to force a site to do certain things. (which may wind up breaking it in your browser). But couldn't a possible solution to the horribly designed myspace pages be one where there's a Firefox extension or Opera (whatever) that makes all myspace pages look like one default thing? Have it automatically ignore the music and videos, etc..

Another analysis

[compwiz]

Compete Blog has a different perspective on the trends using different data here.

Young yes, still unique visitors though..

[lopie]

Does it really matter why they are there? There are so many benefits to all the 10-14 year old on myspace.com by the way. First of all, if they are looking to customize their myspace page and make it cool, they are learning CSS (cascading style sheets). What a great way to force kids to start using computers! If not, they can also check out one of the million websites for myspace layouts and graphics (I like http://www.myspacepunked.com/ for the linux support). Frankly, I'm happy about the situation. Hell, it is better for the kids to be on myspace than watching tv.

no you ~ Re:divide page hits by 12

[SaberTaylor]

It wasn't immediately obvious how to make a global group versus a school group to me.

Please to be making a global group and I will link to it from mine.

I don't use Facebook very often.