Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Task 10 - Explore MySpace.com

http://www.myspace.com/erik_cookie_monster

MySpace is a social networking site that gives people a free way to communicate with friends acquaintances and strangers. Used by many to keep in touch with friends and invite others to events, it is also used by people who are networking or promoting. The benefit of having a freely hosted profile, email/chat account, event/birthday reminder service, and blog is very nice. The fact that it is easy to configure and that there are many websites with profile editors and a large community willing to help newbies is also positive.
The downside of this is the pathological human element. People who do bad things can also freely join MySpace and other social networking sites with anonymity. These bad people can abuse information, spam people, and write inappropriate comments/emails. It's unfortunate that bad people also join MySpace. I guess that since this is in an online, "virtual" human-to-computer-to-server-to-computer-to-human domain, good people magically forget that people are at the other end and that the same rules that apply in everyday human-to-human life don't apply online. This is a mistake on the part of good people and they need to be reminded that regardless of the medium, whether face-to-face, on the phone, or online, safety is important above all. People who understand this need to communicate this to people who are unaware of this.
MySpace owes its popularity to it's ease of use and free accounts. The company is able to keep accounts free through ad revenues. Some people use ad blockers since they find the Adobe Flash-based advertisements annoying (the ones that make noises and follow your cursor).

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