Myspace

[Member Services]

Area Light Member Services presents...a discussion about Myspace.

Are you on Myspace? Please feel free to share your profile link and comment on Myspace in general.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I set up on Myspace but am not ready to share it with everyone yet. I do think the platform is great for representing personal interests such as music. The interface is very customizable. I set mine up with music to play automatically, a customized background, and a blog.

It took me a couple days to research and play around with the features. There are a lot of free applications floating around for people to customize their appearance and features such as music and videos. It's as easy as copying and pasting some html code into your profile. A little HTML knowledge and you can figure out how to hide the app linkbacks. My myspace is going to be incorporated into my main business concept outside Area Light, however the focus will primarily be a place where I am just being myself- talking about music and good beer! When it's finished, I will be sure to add links here on this forum and to My Page on Area Light.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I spent some time modifying my MySpace profile this weekend. I really wanted to get rid of most of the common apps and know you can find coding to hide most of these. I was successful enough and plan to use the site for "Release" notes on my various product lines. For example, I might announce the release of Area Light. The trouble with the MySpace app so far is that I can't easily do exactly what I want with it. It's dynamic enough and i suppose if it is your primary environment you can really grow accustomed to it. Finding the resources to get work done takes me through an entirely different world. It's kind of scary in a sense that it seems like the risk for picking up virusses etc is a lot higher. It also seems like some people know how to do things they shouldn't do, such as remove the ads- because they can. Interesting dynamics. Normally, I push the limits with respect to risks I take with available platforms. In this case, I think my safest bet is to keep it simple, because the probability of negative consequences seems to be a lot higher.

[Jodie]

I have a MySpace page, primarily set up to compliment UIS for viral networking purposes. MySpace is good for spreading the word so to speak.
UIS on MySpace

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I've done some further exploration into MySpace as a social network. My application should be very simple as a sort of press release medium.

Among the things on my mind lately include the social networking application itself. I'm interested in business and skeptical MySpace would have much to offer on that level. I do know some businesses use it and I think it will fit with my business too. Recently I surfed through some business communities/ groups and found there is a world there. It also is characterized by just as much trash is you would find anywhere else. I also think it may have more trash and come across as cheaper anyways.

Regardless, I've also found a lot more local action. I see a lot of students and more local businesses using MySpace to represent their interests. For that market, I think it is going to be important to be set up on their application of choice. It's likely to be one of the hotter apps for my viral marketing strategy even though I would say the interface is generally inferior to Ning and others I've looked into. I wonder about their evolution. Will they become obsolete by riding out the user base they have now? Or will they upgrade and refine up to restate their current position and continue competing for web volume? There are a lot more new social entworking apps and communities in general popping up everywhere. I get the feeling they are going to let the app stay as it is.

Best,

Anthony

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

Something I found interesting today was the distribution networks you can publish to through Myspace. Off hand I'd guess there were over thirty social networks such as Twitter you could feed your blogs to. I don't know if you can set up automatically or you have to send out each time. I'd also be interested to see if you can mass distribute at one click or even automatically.

Right now I'm still in research and development, but it's interesting playing around with strategic concepts for use of the platform. Seeing the distribution channels organized this way, it makes the prospects of the application a lot more exciting.