The MySpace Ecosystem

conq writes "BusinessWeek has an article on how MySpace is developing its own ecosystem in the same way that Microsoft did it with Windows, and Apple with the iPod. From the article: 'Now, MySpace is beginning to create its own ecosystem of third-party companies that are developing features and applications for the giant digital community. The idea is to encourage other companies to use their creativity and expertise to come up with things for MySpace users that MySpace itself hasn't. That could be anything from letting people add to their MySpace home pages from a mobile phone or creating a slide show of their favorite MySpace photos."

I must be the only one...

[CtrlPhreak]

I have to be the only one without myspace... I'm in the demographic I mean early twenties and I have friends with them. I have other social sites etc, but myspace really has no appeal to me. Can somebody explain to me what the deal is, because nobody thus far has been able to.

And now I'm able to myspace from anywhere and do all kinds of extra stuff with my myspace that I just don't give a rats ass about, so umm yeah... sign me up?

Myspace isn't so bad...

[sivartis]

Other than having no privacy, but hell, I don't go there for that. I'm findnig it's great for keeping in touch with friends who otherwise would be but a shadowy spectre in some distant land (Wisconsin). I do with it was a little more stable. I understand that with 90 million users whings get a little hairy, but is it too much to ask that they upgrade to handle the bandwidth demand? And expand their features. If I make a comment on someone's blog that they respond to, let me know. Little thing, people. Little things.

New features.. wooo

[JakeX]

Wow thats great, maybe someone might actually come up with a page design application that doesn't have flashing gifs, multiple videos, tacky backgrounds for my(crap)space. I don't understand why everyone on myspace must design their page like something out of the 1990's with as many flashing images and crap as possible.. Just to annoy you.

What is the difference?

[Recovering Hater]

Can someone tell me what the difference is between myspace and geocities is? It's as if geocities all of a sudden got extremely popular. I just don't see what the big deal is? Cut and paste crappy webpages with no privacy? Why would I want to be associated with myspace?

Re:I must be the only one...

[timeOday]

I was listening to the radio this morning, and a middle-aged radio host said to him myspace is like the VCR was to his parents' generation - it has no purpose and just sits there blinking 12:00. I don't "get" myspace either (never visited), but it must be popular if even people on the radio who don't know what it is, still know about it.

I'd be happy with theses features...

[dannyelfman]

1. Actually know who is checking out my profile. Sometimes people are shy and it would be good to maybe make the first step in communication.
2. I don't know, how about not getting SERVER TOO BUSY half the time in the afternoon?
3. Less anoying profile ``themes'' Ok, I know this is the users fault....

Re:Age Verification

[Bryansix]

Simple. Ask for a credit card and then charge a dollar to it. Call the charge "Age Verification". Then refund the charge in 28 days. If some kid steals his Dad's cc then the Dad is going to see the charge on the bill and start asking questions.

Re:Age Verification

[Skim123]

I remember the original Leisure Suit Larry game had a unique age verification system. Before it would let you play, it would ask you three multiple choice questions that had to do with pop culture, politics, and whatnot from the 70s, something a ten year old in the late 80s would likely know nothing about. :-)

Egads

[Gr8Apes]

They've "re-invented" USENET by the sound of your description. Or rather, what USENET would have evolved into if AOL had not connected to the internet before the web was born.

Re:They've always had an ecosystem...

[Billosaur]

I think it's hilarious when I see parents on the news talking about the "myspace generation". "Oh yeah, my son has music playing while watching tv and IMing his friends and updating his myspace all at the same time". It makes them completely unfocused and makes it possible for them to half-ass ten things at once. I think myspace and AIM are possibly the two most influencial things dumbing down children in america today. I actually think that without these two things children in Amercia would be smarter. Would you want to leave that legacy? Dumbing down an entire generation...

Hey it started way before MySpace. Every generation has had its dumbing down influence: Rock 'N Roll in the 50's, Drugs in 60's, Disco and more Drugs in the 70's, Video Games in the 80's... Sure, none of these things are harmful in and of themselves, but the issue has always been one of abuse. Kids who listened to the beginnings of rock in the 50's certainly didn't turn out too bad, or we wouldn't be here now. The fact is, something interesting and unique tends to make itself known every decade or so, and a cadre of devoted worshippers take this thing and run it into the ground. There's definitely a dumbing down, but I don't think it's so severe, owing to the fact that plenty of us are still here making productive lives.

Yes, MySpace sucks and is probably a big waste of a kid's time, but the fact is most of the kids who use it will not abuse it and turn out all right, while those who do abuse it will become more societal detritus that we're all going to have to pay for at some point. Nothing changes.

Re:screw that, how about load balancing first?

[lowfatsugar]

I'll second that. I've written an adapter that lets me search MySpace music listings from my desktop, but because MySpace doesn't have a public API (unlike Yahoo, Google and even Amazon) I have had to rely entirely on screenscraping. Because the information is so poorly organized, the adapter has to do a little link crawling to actually get a decent set of data to display in the search results. While I was testing the link crawling, the MySpace web server performed so poorly and timed out so consistently that I was afraid they had some sort of denial-of-service protection that was blocking my IP. Now that I've actually used the site for a week, I understand that this is just typical MySpace slowness. Ugh!