Thursday, April 06, 2006
You Can Say What You Like On YourSpace, As Long As Rupert Murdoch Agrees With It
I was more or less totally unaware of the phenomenon that is MySpace until yesterday, when commenter Happyviolet told me about it.
Is there much point to it? I welcome your input on this. It just seems like a place for people to spend hours and hours mooching around the profiles of people they don't know, and probably wouldn't like, in order to strategically place such fascinating comments as 'lol' and 'wow' there.
Apparently, you have to sign a contract when you join. This contract stipulates that:
'Harassment, hate speech and inappropriate content should be reported. If you feel someone's behaviour is inappropriate, react. Talk with a trusted adult, or report it to MySpace or the authorities.'
It would seem that roughly 200,000 profiles have fallen foul of this ruling. The trouble is, it seems to me, that these are particularly poorly defined categories. After all, one man's great joke is another man's 'inappropraite content.' I suppose it's an attempt to keep soft porn off the site, but it would seem that it is possible to campaign to have individual profiles removed by continually reporting them to the moderator.
The other thing that baffles me is this notion that having hundreds of people you'll never meet signing up to be a cyberfriend somehow shows how cool you are. Alfina describes it as being 'like a ceaseless dick-measuring contest in a middle school locker room', and that sounds about right to me.
So, readers, this is your challenge - sell MySpace to me! If any of your manage to win me over, i promise to add you to my 'friends' list.
Is there much point to it? I welcome your input on this. It just seems like a place for people to spend hours and hours mooching around the profiles of people they don't know, and probably wouldn't like, in order to strategically place such fascinating comments as 'lol' and 'wow' there.
Apparently, you have to sign a contract when you join. This contract stipulates that:
'Harassment, hate speech and inappropriate content should be reported. If you feel someone's behaviour is inappropriate, react. Talk with a trusted adult, or report it to MySpace or the authorities.'
It would seem that roughly 200,000 profiles have fallen foul of this ruling. The trouble is, it seems to me, that these are particularly poorly defined categories. After all, one man's great joke is another man's 'inappropraite content.' I suppose it's an attempt to keep soft porn off the site, but it would seem that it is possible to campaign to have individual profiles removed by continually reporting them to the moderator.
The other thing that baffles me is this notion that having hundreds of people you'll never meet signing up to be a cyberfriend somehow shows how cool you are. Alfina describes it as being 'like a ceaseless dick-measuring contest in a middle school locker room', and that sounds about right to me.
So, readers, this is your challenge - sell MySpace to me! If any of your manage to win me over, i promise to add you to my 'friends' list.
Comments:
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My writing group from the Second City Novi and the actors from our stage show ALL have MySpace. Hell, even the show has it (SCBirdFlu).
So I had to make one. (SafeTinspector MySpace Outpost)
Its useless. The blog is hobbled by so many restrictions on technical content its a pile of trash. You can use CSS, but not Javascript or includes or fuck near anything.
The whole thing is so chock-full of adverts that I feel dirty browsing, and there's a decidedly sophomoric tenor to the entire enterprise.
Its even buggier than Blogger, as I was frequently hit with "Try Again Later" type messages when setting up my stupid profile.
Other than the rudimentary contact management feature of having "friends" I see no use for it.
You're spot-on with the comments. There's also a feature called "Bulletins" which adds a bulletin to the private profile of all your buddies, which I suppose might be useful, but is most likely annoying.
I've found it rathre insular. No one I communicated with seemed interested in reading any content at all.
I know you asked me to sell you on it, but I'm not.
I'll just stick with my SafeTinspector Main Blog here on good 'ol Blogger for now.
I've heard, however, that wordpress is pretty good, too.
So I had to make one. (SafeTinspector MySpace Outpost)
Its useless. The blog is hobbled by so many restrictions on technical content its a pile of trash. You can use CSS, but not Javascript or includes or fuck near anything.
The whole thing is so chock-full of adverts that I feel dirty browsing, and there's a decidedly sophomoric tenor to the entire enterprise.
Its even buggier than Blogger, as I was frequently hit with "Try Again Later" type messages when setting up my stupid profile.
Other than the rudimentary contact management feature of having "friends" I see no use for it.
You're spot-on with the comments. There's also a feature called "Bulletins" which adds a bulletin to the private profile of all your buddies, which I suppose might be useful, but is most likely annoying.
I've found it rathre insular. No one I communicated with seemed interested in reading any content at all.
I know you asked me to sell you on it, but I'm not.
I'll just stick with my SafeTinspector Main Blog here on good 'ol Blogger for now.
I've heard, however, that wordpress is pretty good, too.
Live Journal is Satan, pure and simple. I've never ever read anything on it that was even average in quality. It merely consists of the barely readable witterings of the world's least educated and least interesting teenagers.
I wonder what will be the DVD to MySpace's VHS.
It's difficult to see the direction of these communication sites, because as soon as one becomes successful, it tips the whole lot into temporary discord. MySpace is sort of positioned halfway between blogging software and messaging software.
I guess that, much as I hope that everything will take a blog-related turn, it probably won't because of the investment in time and effort a blog requires. Maybe MySpace has it about right, at least for now.
It's difficult to see the direction of these communication sites, because as soon as one becomes successful, it tips the whole lot into temporary discord. MySpace is sort of positioned halfway between blogging software and messaging software.
I guess that, much as I hope that everything will take a blog-related turn, it probably won't because of the investment in time and effort a blog requires. Maybe MySpace has it about right, at least for now.
If Blogger and GMail melded a bit it could do the MySpace thing up right.
Not that Google couldn't do it, but I don't think the programming teams even know eachother.
Not that Google couldn't do it, but I don't think the programming teams even know eachother.
Blogger must be about due for a major overhaul. I mean, I'm not complaining, I love it, and it is free, but I'm sure they could offer a more sophisticated package these days.
Frankly, I've been doing this now for long enough to know I'm more or less addicted, so I would even consider paying, as long as it was a very small, notional amount.
Frankly, I've been doing this now for long enough to know I'm more or less addicted, so I would even consider paying, as long as it was a very small, notional amount.
"so I would even consider paying, as long as it was a very small, notional amount."
Don't say that too loud- They might hear.
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Don't say that too loud- They might hear.
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