MySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California, US, where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, News Corp. Digital Media, owned by News Corporation. MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006. According to comScore, MySpace was overtaken internationally by its main competitor, Facebook, in April 2008, based on monthly unique visitors. MySpace employs 1,000 employees, after laying off 30% of its workforce in June 2009; the company does not disclose revenues or profits separately from News Corporation. The 100 millionth account was created on August 9, 2006, in the Netherlands.
History
After the 2002 launch of Friendster, several eUniverse employees with Friendster accounts saw its potential and decided to mimic the more popular features of the social networking website, in August 2003. Within 10 days, the first version of MySpace was ready for launch. A complete infrastructure of finance, human resources, technical expertise, bandwidth, and server capacity was available for the site, right out of the gate, so the MySpace team wasn’t distracted with typical start-up issues. The project was overseen by Brad Greenspan (eUniverse's Founder, Chairman, CEO), who managed Chris DeWolfe (MySpace's starting CEO), Josh Berman, Tom Anderson (MySpace's starting president), and a team of programmers and resources provided by eUniverse.
The very first MySpace users were eUniverse employees. The company held contests to see who could sign-up the most users. The company then used its resources to push MySpace to the masses. eUniverse used its 20 million users and e-mail subscribers to quickly breathe life into MySpace, and move it to the head of the pack of social networking websites. A key architect was tech expert Toan Nguyen who helped stabilize the MySpace platform when Brad Greenspan asked him to join the team.
The origin of the MySpace.com domain was a site owned by YourZ.com, Inc. It was intended to be a leading online data storage and sharing site up until 2002. By 2004, MySpace and MySpace.com, which existed as a brand associated with YourZ.com, had made the transition from a virtual storage site to a social networking site. This is the natural connection to Chris DeWolfe and a friend, who reminded him he had earlier bought the URL domain, MySpace.com, intending it to be used as a web hosting site, since both worked at one time in the virtual data storage business, which itself was a casualty of the "dot bomb" era.
Shortly after launching the site, team member Chris DeWolfe suggested that they start charging a fee for the basic MySpace service. Brad Greenspan nixed the idea, believing that keeping MySpace free and open was necessary to make it a large and successful community.
Some employees of MySpace including DeWolfe and Berman were later able to purchase equity in the property before MySpace, and its parent company eUniverse (now renamed Intermix Media) was bought in July 2005 for US$580 million by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (the parent company of Fox Broadcasting and other media enterprises). Of this amount, approximately US$327 million has been attributed to the value of MySpace according to the financial adviser fairness opinion.
In January 2006, Fox announced plans to launch a UK version of MySpace in a bid to "tap into the UK music scene" which they have since done. They also released a version in China and have since launched similar versions in other countries.
The corporate history of MySpace as well as the status of Tom Anderson as a MySpace founder has been a matter of some public dispute.
New design
Throughout the course of 2007 and 2008, MySpace redesigned many of the features of its site in both layout and in function. One of the first functions to be redesigned was the user home page, with features such as status updates, applications, and subscriptions being added in order to compete with Facebook. In 2008, the MySpace homepage was redesigned. MySpace Music was recreated in fall of 2008 along with an updated version of the MySpace profile.
On March 10,2010, MySpace has undergone a revamp and some new features added like recommendation engine for new users which suggests games, music and videos based on their previous search habits.The website will also release several mobile micro applications for MySpace gamers besides sending them games alerts. The site may release 20 to 30 micro apps and go mobile next year.
Revenue model
MySpace operates solely on revenues generated by advertising as its user model possesses no paid-for features for the end user. Through its Web site and affiliated ad networks, MySpace is second only to Yahoo! in its capacity to collect data about its users and thus in its ability to use behavioral targeting to select the ads each visitor sees.
On August 8, 2006, search engine Google signed a $900 million deal to provide a Google search facility and advertising on MySpace. MySpace has proven to be a windfall for many smaller companies that provide widgets or accessories to the social networking giant. Companies such as Slide.com, RockYou!, and YouTube were all launched on MySpace as widgets providing additional functionality to the site. Other sites created layouts to personalize the site and made hundreds of thousands of dollars for its owners most of whom were in their late teens and early twenties.
In November 2008, MySpace announced that user-uploaded content that infringed on copyrights held by MTV and its subsidiary networks would be redistributed with advertisements that would generate revenue for the companies.
Despite losing popularity to Facebook & Twitter in recent months, Rupert Murdoch has no plans to sell off MySpace, nor buy out Twitter. Murdoch gave the site his personal support, while feeling that Twitter has yet to find a way to make money on its own. However, in 2009, Myspace also added a new status update feature. If a Myspace user has a Twitter account, the tweet will also update the Myspace status. (Facebook also has a similar feature.) It does, however, require that the two accounts to be synched up together.
Contents of a MySpace profile
Moods
Moods are small emoticons that are used to depict a mood the user is in. The feature was added in July 2007.
Blurbs, blogs, multimedia
Profiles contain two standard "blurbs": "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" sections. Profiles also contain an "Interests" section and a "Details" section. In the "Details" section, "Status" and "Zodiac Sign" fields will always display. However, fields in these sections will not be displayed if members do not fill them in. Profiles also contain a blog with standard fields for content, emotion, and media. MySpace also supports uploading images. One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image", the image that will be seen on the profile's main page, search page, and as the image that will appear to the side of the user's name on comments, messages, etc. A photo editor powered by Fotoflexer is available which can not only crop images and adjust contrast but also convert the image to a cartoon or a line drawing made with neon lights, or put the user's face in a photo of a $100 bill. Flash, such as on MySpace's video service, can be embedded. Blogging features are also available.
Comments
Below the User's Friends Space (by default) is the "comments" section, wherein the user's friends may leave comments for all viewers to read. MySpace users have the option to delete any comment and/or require all comments to be approved before posting. If a user's account is deleted, every comment left on other profiles by that user will be deleted, and replaced with the comment saying "This Profile No Longer Exists."
Profile customization (HTML)
MySpace allows users to customize their user profile pages by entering HTML (but not JavaScript) into such areas as "About Me," "I'd Like to Meet," and "Interests." Videos and flash-based content can be included this way. Users also have the option to add music to their profile pages via MySpace Music, a service that allows bands to post songs for use on MySpace.
A user can also change the general appearance of his or her page by entering CSS (in a <style> ... </style> element) into one of these fields to override the page's default style sheet using MySpace editors. This is often used to tweak fonts and colors. The fact that the user-added CSS is located in the middle of the page (rather than being located in the <head> element) means that the page will begin to load with the default MySpace layout before abruptly changing to the custom layout. A special type of modification is a div overlay, where the default layout is dramatically changed by hiding default text with <div> tags and large images.
There are several independent web sites offering MySpace layout design utilities which let a user select options and preview what their page will look like with them.
MySpace has recently added its own "Profile Customizer" to the site, allowing users to change their profile through MySpace. Using this feature bypasses the CSS loading delay issue, as the MySpace default code is changed for the customized profile. The MySpace profile editor also has a criticism with how the links appear on the profile.
Music
MySpace profiles for musicians in the
Picture Comments - BabiTag.com - Sassy,Trendy,Sexy ...
... or online discussion bulletin boards. ... Babitag has Picture Comments Comments & Graphics for MySpace,Hi5,Orkut,Friendster,Facebook
My God You're So Pretty Myspace Comment Picture ...
Home » Myspace Pictures » Comments Pictures » Picture Comments ... Add to Your "About Me" or Post as Bulletin or: ... is how to use this My God You're So Pretty Myspace Comment ...
MySpace Bulletin Picture Commnet Generator
We offer Myspace Layouts, Myspace Codes, Myspace Generators, Myspace Backgrounds, Myspace Graphics, Myspace Comments, MySpace Icons and much more! Check out our large selection of ...
Funny Comments for Myspace - Funny Myspace Comment ...
CoolMyspaceComments.com is #1 source for Myspace Comments, Comment picture ... funny comments by using our funny comment codes or send a myspace bulletin using our funny comment ...
Bulletin Picture Comment Generator for MySpace
Bulletin Picture Comment Generator for MySpace You can post one of your MySpace pictures in a bulletin, and get instant comments!
Satisfaction | MySpace Layouts, MySpace Comments ...
PHOTO & PICTURE GENERATORS: NOTE & LETTER MAKERS: FLASH ... Comments & Graphics: MySpace Layout Maker: Good Night ... Utherverse, Social Networks, eCards, Forums, Bulletin ...
Look For The Happy Spots In Life Myspace Comment ...
Home » Myspace Pictures » Comments Pictures » Picture Comments ... Add to Your "About Me" or Post as Bulletin or: ... to use this Look For The Happy Spots In Life Myspace Comment ...
How to Add Photos to a Bulletin or Comment on MySpace ...
How to Add Photos to a Bulletin or Comment on MySpace. Perhaps, you've had a friend send out a bulletin and noticed the nice picture he put right in the middle. Or, maybe you want ...
How to Put a Picture in a Comment on MySpace | eHow.com
How to Add Photos to a Bulletin or Comment on MySpace; How to Keep A MySpace User From ... Put a Picture in a Comment on MySpace
bulletintalk.com - MySpace Bulletin Editor - MySpace ...
MySpace Bulletin Editor - MySpace Bulletin - Picture Comment Game