Slashdot Mirror
The MySpace Ecosystem
conq writes "BusinessWeek has an article on how MySpace is developing its own ecosystem in the same way that Microsoft did it with Windows, and Apple with the iPod. From the article: 'Now, MySpace is beginning to create its own ecosystem of third-party companies that are developing features and applications for the giant digital community. The idea is to encourage other companies to use their creativity and expertise to come up with things for MySpace users that MySpace itself hasn't. That could be anything from letting people add to their MySpace home pages from a mobile phone or creating a slide show of their favorite MySpace photos."
I have to be the only one without myspace... I'm in the demographic I mean early twenties and I have friends with them. I have other social sites etc, but myspace really has no appeal to me. Can somebody explain to me what the deal is, because nobody thus far has been able to.
And now I'm able to myspace from anywhere and do all kinds of extra stuff with my myspace that I just don't give a rats ass about, so umm yeah... sign me up?
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
Other than having no privacy, but hell, I don't go there for that. I'm findnig it's great for keeping in touch with friends who otherwise would be but a shadowy spectre in some distant land (Wisconsin). I do with it was a little more stable. I understand that with 90 million users whings get a little hairy, but is it too much to ask that they upgrade to handle the bandwidth demand? And expand their features. If I make a comment on someone's blog that they respond to, let me know. Little thing, people. Little things.
"Even pirates like chocolate chip cookies." www.youtube.com/musecast5
Wow thats great, maybe someone might actually come up with a page design application that doesn't have flashing gifs, multiple videos, tacky backgrounds for my(crap)space. I don't understand why everyone on myspace must design their page like something out of the 1990's with as many flashing images and crap as possible.. Just to annoy you.
Vodka likes penis.
Who ever comes up with a real working age verification scheme is going to be rich.
These webpages that provide content for MySpace profiles that consist of a lot of cut and paste code. Yes, you have the instant gratification of getting that cool contact table NOW, but I know lots of people on my friends list that have had to scrap their whole profile and start over fresh because they messed it up so bad with code they don't understand.
I use a lot of the cut and paste stuff myself, but it definately helps when you know at least some basic HTML.
"Oh, say, can you see by the dawnzer lee light," sang Miss Binney
Hating on MySpace is the "in" thing. Matter of fact, it's even more cool than MySpace itself.
Not only is it a very, very heavily trafficed site, but it's also one the users tend to invest quite a bit of time and effort in (ignoring the "lawl myspace is teh suck", I'm not a huge fan myself but it's getting silly). Any advertiser with sense is going to see a large market there, and one big enough that it's worth making an effort to specifically target the demographics using it, with relevant services.
It's a goddamn website, Jim, not the Everglades!
Eco system or not, it is still a public corporation (thanks to Turner) and needs to make some money (it can also be a vehicle for Ted to brainwash millions of kid into watching TBS reruns). However, whie MySpace remains questionable profitable, people think of it as a viable venue, once they start looking for ways to actually make money is when their eco system collapses on itself.
This is what happend to Genie, Compuserve, AOL, and now a possibility for MySpace. Remember how laughable AOL user was.
Is MySpace getting to be the AOL of 2000s?
It appears as though an evil group of people has censored the popular medias, causing widespread stupidity & ignorance.
Just remember, don't have an intellectual fight with a moron. They will just drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
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Can someone tell me what the difference is between myspace and geocities is? It's as if geocities all of a sudden got extremely popular. I just don't see what the big deal is? Cut and paste crappy webpages with no privacy? Why would I want to be associated with myspace?
My humor is probably your flamebait
Hey, were you perhaps the guy that invented the Goose-Poop-Scooping Machine? Cause I'm sure it would take a lot of v0dka to think that one up!
... even spyware!
Could I have an emo kid detector? Oh wait... most of the site would get flagged. Hmmmm.... Back to the drawing board.
Seriously... why bother with anything new if your system is too slow for anyone to be able to use it?
Right now, I was just waiting for my profile to load for about 2 minutes - and that's not even that bad. Some features just time out or load partially.
MySpace is simply collapsing under its own load.
It has become too popular for its own good.
First, get the site to stay up - then and only then can you add features.
-- This sig for rent.
This is breaking news, but the entire point of this article just got destroyed with the news that myspace is looking to expundge these so-called widgets:
e atens-youtube-rockyou-and-hundreds-more/
http://mashable.com/2006/07/21/myspace-update-thr
1. Multiple e-commerce models. Something will probably work.
;)
2. Multiple approaches to network analysis, collaborative filtering, etc. (Obligatory shameless plug: The hot new company in network analysis is Cogito.)
3. Various communications things.
4. Various real time monitoring things, both narrowly filtered and for overall trends.
I bet if I'd logged onto the site a single time in my whole life I might be able to come up with even more ideas.
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.
The parent will probably get rated troll. However, it's 100% true. Myspace is complete and utter garbage. First of all, the site itself is horrible. In my experience it's fully operational less than 10% of the time. Then we get these stupid messages from "Tom", the face of myspace, "I know pictures aren't working right now. Don't send me emails, I'm working on it". There's always something wrong with it.
Then pretty much every moron goes to pimp my myspace and creates a page so broken it takes 5 minutes to load. I sure do like hearing 5 music videos and Dane Cook all playing at the same time. Then they plaster the comments with "Hey gurlie. l00kin sex-c" (and that's the most legible of the comments!). Myspace pages are pretty much unusable. They are actually worse than the geocities pages of the late 90's.
I think it's hilarious when I see parents on the news talking about the "myspace generation". "Oh yeah, my son has music playing while watching tv and IMing his friends and updating his myspace all at the same time". It makes them completely unfocused and makes it possible for them to half-ass ten things at once. I think myspace and AIM are possibly the two most influencial things dumbing down children in america today. I actually think that without these two things children in Amercia would be smarter. Would you want to leave that legacy? Dumbing down an entire generation...
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
1. Actually know who is checking out my profile. Sometimes people are shy and it would be good to maybe make the first step in communication.
2. I don't know, how about not getting SERVER TOO BUSY half the time in the afternoon?
3. Less anoying profile ``themes'' Ok, I know this is the users fault....
What, like the ecosystem that's growing in my not-recently-cleaned fridge?
Here's my idea... Someone should create a program that will go through a user's e-mail box on MySpace and back everything up. The program could also make MySpace's e-mail system better. Kinda like a front end for it...
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
They've "re-invented" USENET by the sound of your description. Or rather, what USENET would have evolved into if AOL had not connected to the internet before the web was born.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
...comes complete with phishing, worms, and viruses.
If I wanted a community like that, I could have just thrown my PC to the bottom of the ocean.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Amen man. Amen.
Wheee, a blatant plug:
http://www.flashyourspace.com/
I've been doing exactly this, playing around with myspace as a target platform while I teach myself flash.
Hey it started way before MySpace. Every generation has had its dumbing down influence: Rock 'N Roll in the 50's, Drugs in 60's, Disco and more Drugs in the 70's, Video Games in the 80's... Sure, none of these things are harmful in and of themselves, but the issue has always been one of abuse. Kids who listened to the beginnings of rock in the 50's certainly didn't turn out too bad, or we wouldn't be here now. The fact is, something interesting and unique tends to make itself known every decade or so, and a cadre of devoted worshippers take this thing and run it into the ground. There's definitely a dumbing down, but I don't think it's so severe, owing to the fact that plenty of us are still here making productive lives.
Yes, MySpace sucks and is probably a big waste of a kid's time, but the fact is most of the kids who use it will not abuse it and turn out all right, while those who do abuse it will become more societal detritus that we're all going to have to pay for at some point. Nothing changes.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Yes, Myspace has an ecosystem. They have adware. They have spyware. They have spam. They have Zango. They have affiliates. It's like AOL gone bad.
The -irony- of it all is that the so-called 'alternative' folks out there seem to have little problem supporting the likes of Rupert Murdoch whilst managing to espouse their own 'radical' beliefs onto the 'ignorant masses'. Nothing like a good dose of hypocrisy to wake you up in the morning, eh! ;-)
np: Snog
Okay, it wasn't the simpsons. Seriously though, AOL has done exactly that, and it hasn't been working out too well for them lately. It worked well before the inception of the graphical web browser and ubiquitous internet access, but before that it was a surefire business model. Now, with so much "free" content on the web that does not even require registration, why would one want to become a MySpace member to access it?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Every time myspace is mentioned on slashdot, we same exactly the same thing. 98% of comments are just "UGH MYSPACE SUCKS", leaving absolutely no space for the kind of intelligent debate in the comments which brought me to slashdot in the first place.
So I thought I would try and buck the trend.
Let's see what the common complaints are about myspace:
First, some technical/webdesigner type ones.
Second, some more social/content focused ones.
You know what? Pretty much all true. I can't argue with it. And for exactly these reasons, I used to preach anti-myspace rants in exactly the same vein as this comment. I might even have done so on slashdot itself -- I know for a fact I did on other forums, extensively.
But that's not quite the whole story.
Things are a bit different for music accounts.
Ya see, I'm in a band (unsigned/independent) and being a web developer for a day job, I'm left to look after that side of our operations. For the longest time I refused to get the band a myspace page for all the above reasons - but eventually the band forced me to drop my web designer snootiness about myspace and sort us out a page, and since then I've been forced to change my opinions a bit. For bands/musicians, it's genuinely quite useful.
When we started the page, I went on an adding spree, not adding strangers just to bump up our friend count, but just adding (1) people who are genuinely our friends (2) people who've previously bought our cds / come to our gigs / bigged us up, (3) a few famous bands/djs/people who are influences and inspirations to us. Aside from that I don't add request anyone -- I wait for them to add request us! And they do...! Usually something between 1 and half a dozen every day for the last month or so. Sometimes they're obviously people who have been to our gigs but sometimes they're obviously not (because they live in countries we've never played), they're just people who have been searching for music, come across us and liked the tunes...
And this is the crux of it. Sure, personally, as a "geeky" / "old school" web user, I'd much rather search google, find a website, and download an mp3 (or ogg, if you insist ;) ), than search myspace, find a profile, and listen with a flash player. Like most of you guys.
But I - and you guys - are not typical. Obviously most people find the convenience of myspace and its auto-playing songs more appealing. Do you know how many emails I get saying "I randomly found your website from google and listened to your mp3s" -- pretty much none. Ever. Do you know how many messages from complete randoms on myspace saying "nice tunes" I get -- one every few weeks or so. As a band member/promoter you just can't ignore that!
It genuinely works for getting new fans and networking. Example: A couple of weeks ago we played at a festival near Amsterdam (we're based in London). When I asked the promoter how he discovered us and decided we were worth paying to bring over from the UK (remember, we're completely unsigned, we have no label or financial backing, we book all our own gigs ourselves, we record, produce, finance, and distribute our albums ourself, we have next to no media coverage...) he said "myspace".
So, if you want to bash it for being ugly and full of annoying emo kids, stolen pictures and unreadable profiles I can't really argue. It is. On the other hand... getting paid to go to Amsterdam for a long weekend isn't
Plus those questions weren't all that hard or obscure, and you could try as many times as you needed to get them right without the game locking out on you.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
"BusienssWeek has an article..."
Ah yes, the Eidtors are hard at work...
I'm not going to read all that.
Myspace isn't that bad. Think of the good: 1. Anything that keeps kids off the streets causing trouble is good. I'd rather have kids posting surveys nonstop, leaving comments, putting more crap on their profile etc than breaking into my car or selling drugs. 2. People are forced to learn some HTML. For example, my 21 year old girlfriend of two years knew little about computers in general when we first started dating. Using Myspace as a motivation, she has learned a bit of HTML and now has started playing around with CSS code to do different things. She had no idea what google is, and now uses google to look up animated images or instructions on how to code certian things. She has even went as far as googling for an animaged gif program, downloading it, learning it, and using it to make some of her own images animated. Very neat stuff. 3. It's not full of perverts, molesters, and emo/goth people. I signed up and quickly got in touch with some people I graduated with I have no talked to since graduation. It was really neat to see who had kids, who turned out to be gay, who gained weight, which girls look awesome and were not very good looking, etc. 4. Music. If you like music, then Myspace turnes out to be pretty cool. Each band has their profile with the tour dates, a few songs, videos, some keep up blogs which are interesting to read up on, etc. All and all, it's not too bad of a site.
Sorry! an unexpected error has occurred.
This error has been forwarded to MySpace's technical group.
Hehe. Well, I did admit it's a technological piece of shit ;)
But, I just hit refresh on our profile, and it works for me. Maybe if you try the verbose link instead of the alias? *shrug*
"the kind of intelligent debate in the comments which brought me to slashdot in the first place."
You're funny. I like you.
Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.
This is why I use facebook only; it includes the basics you need for the social aspect, and the interface doesn't look like animals threw poo at your screen.
When is Slashdot going to create a 'MySpace' ./ catagory with associated icon? I mean, there sure have been enough articles to justify it.
-Ponga
Warning... going OT.
Hehe, I know it seems hard to believe, but I do remember it being that way. I started reading slashdot in about '98 (yes, I know my UID suggests otherwise -- I didn't register at all for a year or two, then I registered but almost never posted and forgot my login, and so then I registered this login much later).
Whether or not it was better back then, or just the fact that I was 8 years younger and hadn't been to university yet, I don't know. But I do remember almost every story seemed to turn up an expert in the field. Low level programming? Hardware hacks? Nuclear physics? There always seemed to be someone who'd done it for a living for many years and had some great stuff to say.
Certainly, I have always come to slashdot to read the comments more than the articles themselves. I can find stuff on CNN/BBC/Ars/etc for myself, it's the breadth and (sometimes!) depth of opinions in the replies that are unique about this place. (And why I still stay here and haven't decamped to digg or technocrat or whatever)
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
MySpace is like a mirror. If a monkey looks in, no sage looks out.
I agree with you completely. The good, intelligent stuff is still there, you're just forced to dig more for it now. I've been reading /. for years myself, and know exactly what you mean. And I definitely agree with the Digg comment. That place pisses me off to no end.
Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.
If you want to check out my modern rock band, go to http://myspace.com/thearchivesband ... I haven't bothered with any of these third-party apps, haven't hacked the css, and it'll only play one song when you open it - so no fears, ok?
I use friend/foe to signal strong [dis]agreement instead of mod points. What else are f/f good for?
Home of Faramir Paint Shop Pro scripts
MySpace is cool. It's got criical mass, it's free promotion and it's actually a pretty fun game to play. Of course there will always be haters, but we'll never be able to shut them up, so in the end, you really just have to ignore them. Power to the people and all that jazz, but don't knock it until you try it.
www.myspace.com/kruhft
Listen to my music.
I know in Firefox (perhaps Opera too) that its possible to force a webpage/website to look in a certain fashion. Couldn't it be possible to do the same for myspace. Have an extension that forcibly reformats how the data at myspace is displayed to you. IE: No music, no flash, no videos just plain text with user information on the left side? Or is myspace coding that horribly blotched? They must have some method of similarity.. I had the same idea on Gamefaqs when I was coming up with a way to actually ignore trolls instead of having a list of known fanboys and trolls. I noticied that the way gamefaqs formats the posts and the content is the same so I figured I'd just code something that would use a database of names (kinda like the adblock plus extension) and if it came across that it simply wouldn't render it till the next username (usually surrounded by a unique tag). Thus hopefully making that person's post invisible to my browser. Though I never did try it..nor did I ask someone to. But is this even possible? I'd use myspace alot more often if I could force all the pages to stick to a certain layout.
"I thought what I'd do was I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes" ~ Laughing Man - GITS:SAC
MySpace is AOL 2.0. The difference is that MySpace's target demographic are insecure morons and pedophiles instead of noob dial-up customers.
..write your own and make it suck less.
;-)
But don't all be like me.
Why does no one talk about Facebook.
really heres a quick analysis:
-guy denies emo girl as freind
-emo girl cries to all her friends
-emo girl kills herself
-guy gets spammed with like 50 camments saying how horrible he is
-guy doesent give a flying fuck
-50 emo girls kill themselves
-guy gets hacked by emo myspace hacker
-guy still doesent care and deletes myspace with the simple thought "oh well i have a life, sucks for those who apparently dont"
i think my old myspace link is up there, youll noticed "invalid freindship id" or something, not for this reason but for pretty much the same w/o being hacked, there is no point to that site at all in my opinion
-Noc
Chris - Beer here from sitespaces.net
Creating an eco-system in this context will not work, because even webservices have severe limitations in what you can do with them.
They are "read-only" or have very severe constraints for any "write".
Windows is an operating system as is Linux and many games. If you really hurt your own system, it stops there. If you hurt a server eco-system with an application it will hurt everyone, as they have clearly already shown.
This limits what they can offer people in the context of an eco-system to some very lame superficial stuff. So I don't feel it's going to work to any greater degree than what they've already done.
Social networking is on the decline, and their alexa.com curve is heading on the downslope, as the next school year rings in, a lot of people are going to find a new site to hang out at that is new and hip.
As for social networking creators making an eco-system, we decided on a real OS ecosystem and are developing a linux distro by the name of deity, with new widgets and other stuff.
Myspace is built on a deck of cards called hype, and trend, and when that deck blows out from underneath them, when kids no longer think social networking in that way is cool anymore, watch out, because they and the other social networks will fall. If you went into this as a trend that's one thing, going in as an all out investment where this type of software was the base was unwise.
Google is so successful because they are primarily a portal, you set google or start.com to your home page. You don't set myspace or bebo.
Social networking does not have the model to stay on top for any length of time, be it friendster, myspace, bebo or whatever. they are hype and trend driven marketing models, and that can never last. You can't "be cool" or "in" forever.
http://www.myspace.com/cranialoverride
MySpace, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.
Her five year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life
and new civlizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.
"And your uname is "Recovering Hater." How delightful."
So by your name i should judge you to be a crappy 70s car that carries pies?
"it has appeared that the computers just weren't offering the kinds of things that women were interested in having."
Whoa! when did computers start offering up babies?
"Don't you think that we're trying to tell you something when we call the folder "public_html?""
that your not terribly creative when you name things?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
It's not an ecosystem - it's an 3rd party add on market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem Why do marketing people insist on misusing language?
The problem with building an... ecosystem, and I use the term loosely becaue I hardly think it applies, is that if you build an ecosystem on a fad, everything depends on the popularity of that fad.
Yes. MySpace is most definitely a fad. It is embraced by teenagers, particularly my generation, in a way I find disgusting. The reason, I suppose, is because these people who post their MySpaces do not have their own website, do not have ever had anything on the vast internetz they could call their own. I can understand this. "You have a MySpace? I have a portfolio of database-driven internet applications, what's your point?"
But I digress. On my original topic, MySpace is, like Abercrombie, Holister, those stupid plastic bracelets, a fad. At some point, not in the distant future, it will simply 'go out of style' and the entire 'ecosystem' surrounding it will collapse. Anyone offering services for MySpace has to be in it for the short term, or they'll fail. Fads die out. MySpace will die out.
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
Cheney "Someone Called?"
That is a quote from Mark Twain.
... but one change I'd LOVE to see would be the ability to view all profiles with the default one and strip out all of the user's goofball code.
"Congratulations, Boots. Your robot has become self-aware. You're a daddy now." -- Dr. Rho Bowman
Signs that the end of the world is near
1. The War on Terror - Who isn't in the Axis of Evil???
2. MySpace - Cut and paste sh*te code pages are cool???
3. Paris Hilton - She can apparently sing???
4. Walmart School Your Way - MySpace is apparently that great???
5. Cinema - it sucks, big time. Revenues for films are down for a reason. Make decent pictures. The MPAA isn't helping
6. Music - real stuff doesn't exist anymore - that or its damn hard to find. The RIAA isn't helping.
7. Emo's - what the f*ck are these kids doing???
Seriously people, the end is near. What's next? China and North Korea are going to go capitalist?
Title says it all. I have to add "-site:myspace.com" to everysearch now to keep myspace hits from poluting my search results. Otherwise I get tons of hits on mere mentions of a contained word. This has only started recently, but is becoming icreasingly /(pur|in)vasive/. Imagine the day when it's so bad that searches like "windows help" brings up nothing but myspace "windows sucks" rants.
My band http://www.myspace.com/chowdermonkey and my solo http://www.myspace.com/bigalbassman MySpace pages. :) MySpace may suck when it comes to the emo-whiney-teens but it rocks for musicians, which is why I was drawn to it in the first place.
I just saw two movie trailers which gave the web site for the movie as "myspace.com/moviename". You used to see "AOL keyword: moviename", then "www.moviename.com". Now it's Myspace. Interesting trend.
Commit suicide if MySpace goes down? dun dun dunnnn
Parent is correct; News Corp bought MySpace, Turner is the genius behind adult swim.
barack to the future?
So, er, forget about this MySpace bashing... but ya know what I really hate? M$, the NSA, gay penguins...
(/. without the bitching is like MySpace without black backgrounds and pink text...)
barack to the future?
Dammit, I meant to put http://www.myspace.com/chowdermonkeyband - HAHAHAHAHA!
Haha, I just found one of ecosystem drivers that touts it is linux friendly. http://www.myspacepunked.com/
A customized home page, 2005 + a Blog, 1993 + Usenet 1979, + IRC, 1993 + E-mail, 1970 + a pile of adverts ...
davecb5620@gmail.com
Hehehehehe... brilliant, that made me chuckle. Thanks!
if he knew the guy's email, he wouldn't be using myspace.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com