bechthros's Journal: In defense of MySpace

From a post I made on the FP:

I'm 31. When I moved across the country to an area where I knew NOBODY, MySpace helped me meet people with similar interests. MySpace is the only reason I have any friends at all down here (yes, I'm a piss-poor socializer outside of an ASCII environment). The one venue where I've found to play my music on a regular basis down here, I found out about through MySpace. I've gotten some fans for my (unsigned, independant) music through MySpace, as well as become a fan of other unsigned, independant local musicians. I don't have a huge fan base, but thanks to MySpace, if I ever visit Seattle, Canada, Charlotte, Chicago, Orlando, or Texas, there's people who can help me hook up shows. MySpace is how I find out when good local acts are playing (do YOU really wanna wade through ten pages of 5-point type in the back of your free weekly? Me neither). MySpace is the reason people come to see me when I play. If MySpace ever adds the ability to email multiple people without the use of bulletins, it might just replace email for me. All of my friends here, and all of my friends in Milwaukee, and all of my friends in San Francicso, are on it. I need to check my MySpace messages multiple times a day. I only need to check my actual email once every day or two.

MySpace isn't completely original - it's basically LiveJournal meets Demostreams. But the idea of a multi-featured user community has come a long way since AOL, and it's a concept that's rapidly gaining traction in the marketplace. Slashdot itself is a user-community, just without certain features (music and pictures) and with others (a more specific and exclusive user base). MySpace, Slashdot, Livejournal, Friendster, etc etc are as successful as they are because the marketplace rewards their ideas.

Are there problems with MySpace? Sure. The ads are getting more and more intrusive. But if that's your argument against it, you might as well argue against the internet itself. There is plenty of ugly HTML on MySpace. Last time I checked, though, there was also plenty outside of it as well. The servers are getting slower and buggier. But again, MySpace is not unique in this regard - I can't even log into Friendster anymore, it's so slow. And yes, there are a bunch of little kids running around acting like morons. But if this is your argument against it, then you must also be against all IM as well. And, just like Slashdot, there are plenty of people who are idiots - and plenty who aren't. Bottom line, MySpace is very much worth the ZERO DOLLARS I paid to be there.