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What's To Keep People At MySpace?
from the will-people-move-on? dept
Following News Corps deal to buy Intermix, mainly to get access to its immensely popular MySpace social networking offering, some are beginning to wonder if being owned by Fox could kill what made MySpace special for many users. There is, not surprisingly, the political angle. There are plenty of people within MySpace who aren't happy with Rupert Murdoch's politics, and some of them are making some noise about it. That aspect is probably overhyped, as it's unlikely that most people care enough to make a real difference in the service. However, a much bigger concern is what News Corp ends up doing with MySpace in general over time as they decide they need to squeeze more money out of it. The number of cool online communities bought by larger companies... only to see the life squeezed out of them (or, more likely, left to whither away while other communities surpassed them) is pretty long (GeoCities and ICQ come to mind quickly). So, while MySpace has done an amazing job building up a huge community and getting people interested, they did so by being somewhat better at the whole social networking thing than Friendster -- who first popularized the space. It's not hard to see another offering come along and leapfrogging MySpace as well, and it's hard to see what MySpace will have to keep people there.
Reader Comments
(Flattened / Threaded)
Does anyone care?
Nobody on my MySpace or (through our message board) my friends' MySpaces care about this transition. When MySpace policy changes so that they have to take down pictures of dead babies or otherwise limit what they can or can not put in their profiles, it might cause a ruckus.
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You're absolutely right
In fact, the killer app might be a fat-client front-end for social network sites, which lets people be part of multiple services like Friendster/MySpace, etc. all using a single, consistent UI. As GAIM is to AIM, this would be to Myspace.
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No Subject Given
i never understood myspace's wild popularity in the first place :P
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Its what he will do
Annoying adds will be more prevalent, "freedom of type" will be tightened up so you can't post whatever you want anymore. Your personal information is now at the fingertips of rupert murdoch to sell you information and personalize even more annoying ads to target with you things they THINK you want.
That is why this could kill myspace for what it was. Greed. Myspace is about community, News Corp is about money. It can make a world(or community) of difference.
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MySpace.
I have a myspace account, but I don't really care who owns myspace as long as they don't start spamming my email. I don't get any spam because I'm careful who I give it to so I just hope fox doesn't see it as a big database of potential mailboxes to spam.
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it's all those things already...
Having never been to mySpace, all this brouhaha led me to check it out. I was expecting, based on all the horror stories about what Murdoch will do to this site, to find a frickin' on-line Whole Earth Catalog with people spinning to Grateful Dead bootlegs and holding anti-war protests.
Instead, the first thing I see at the top of the page is a banner as with Paris Hilton's hideous grill. I hit the "browse" button. I was taken to a (default) page that offered me women 18-35. I saw multiple photos of skanks, pets, animated avatars and a woman who called heself "Sexy By Nature" but wan't sexy or natural.
Looks to me like a singles site and the perfect target for the kind of advertising demographic News Corp wants.
You want privacy and self expression? Start a blog.
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Re: it's all those things already...
IM IN THE MONEY
I own myspace
well not anymore.........
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Music On Myspace
I have hear that now that Fox owns Myspace they will have the right to use artists music without consent. Anyone know if this is true?
Z
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My Space Censorship
In recent weeks the censoring by MySpace and Rupert Murdoch's crew is getting a bit too much. What ever happened to the American Constitution?
There are numerous people complaining about this!
IT NEEDS TO STOP!
NO CENSORSHIP!
Peace
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Murdoch & MySpace
Well, I hate the fact that Murdoch owns MySpace - I care quite vehemently! I did close my account but decided to re-open so I could start making noise against him.
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hello
hey my name is erika mejia aka chucky13
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its true
i hate the fact that FOX uses myspace as a tool to view what people are talkign about to get good news. its like we are going to have to start watching what we say and i dont like it. not to mention the damn advertisment all over the place. i deleted my account just because FOX owns it now and i simply despise rupert murdoch. many of my friends are through with what used to be "MYspace".
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hey
hey wat ya doin
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hey
i never get myspace they can;t help you are nothin thats wrong!!!!
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