Ad Me !! or Die!!

Everybody's on My Space... or should we refer to it as Rupert's space?

all I know is it isn't so much about Tom or Your Space as in "Their Space", the "social networking site" has become a sensation, and a lucrative advertising industry endeavor targeting tweens and net-tards of all ages...

Uh, Ad Me... or die!

MySpace Mixdown - MySpace Milkshake



Currently the site serves about 2 billion ads a day, that's per day, and has about 12% of "all" display ads on the net... That's right...ALL.

The latest figures bandied about suggest that MySpace is believed or hyped to have somewhere around 66 Million some odd ( & no doubt duplicate) members... Traffic is up, including a 752-percent growth in hits over one year and that's not bad considering the site is just 2-1/2 years into it's lifespan.

It appears for every person that logs in once a month, or twice a year, there are dozens that check it daily and even quite a few of te 37.5 million users a month that are borderline addicts I'd say.

"Some people call it ‘MyCrack.’" Harmony Johnson, a North Carolina teen recently told the Asheville Citizen Times . Another kid in the article, an eigth grader named Jack Stewart, laughed when asked if he still used e-mails, now that MySpace and Xanga are on the scene.
“The only reason I use my e-mail is because my grandma sends me e-mails,”...

Whoa dude...

It's amazing how it sorta came outta nowhere into the webs top ten, and was soon sold to NewsCorp last year for around 580 million bucks, and now pulls almost as many pageviews a day as Google, and quite possibly, depending on your sources, even more...

News Corp honchos are referring to MySpace as the top rank of the "new new-media elite" , as opposed to the old new media elite ( Yahoo, Google etc... those are like, so 2000 dude).

Rupert's digital soldier Ross Levinsohn has overseen the upgrading of the new servers and viral content deals, and has claimed MySpace is the "number-one must buy" for advertisers to "reach the youth of this country."

Comedy Central's Daily Show had a funny clip from Trend Spotter Demetri Martin focusing on the site awhile back...become one of his 9000 friends here

Demetri Martin - I Got 9000 Friends On My Space

Well, what's interesting to me about MySpace is not only the owners, but the attraction people get out of viewing MySpace over the obvious diversity and depth of info that is available via Google...

Via Google, a user has access to find almost anything... Current Events, Random Factoids, Genealogical Info, Gardening Tips, Products, Pictures, Sports Scores, Movie Schedules... etc ... basically an infinite array of possible subject matter...

Then consider just what the heck are they possibly looking for on MySpace...

uh, a hot 16 year old who loves Atreyu & Hot Topic in Pennsylvania , a lonely skater into videogames in Montana, or a bored housewife who digs Creed & chocolate milk in Nebraska?

uh...still, despite it's limited informational & intellectual purview, perhaps in fact because of it's silly shallowness...My Space has hit over 20 Million page views a day...

Media Metrics pegs MySpace at 23,566,000 page views a day... which is actually more than they estimate Google gets!

It's a place where a clueless kid can elevate a stranger they've never met to a publically declared "friend" in a matter of seconds. Where said friendships seem defined in virtual quantity rather than quality... (uh, just who the f*%k are these lonely people that keep trolling around and adding me to "add" them !... uh, please go away!)

Maxwell's House - MySpace Makes Me Happy

Because of the popularity of the site, it has also come under criticism with several incidents of sexual predators using MySpace to exploit minors. On Jan. 12 two men in League City, Texas, were charged with sexual assault of minors they met on MySpace. In March, cops booked a 48-year old California man who believed he was engaging a child and proposed lewd and lascivious conduct via MySpace. The site's "networking" success stories keep coming, like NYC's Sonny Szeto, the 22-year-old who met his 11 year old girl "friend", or 39-year-old Pennsylvanian Stephen Letavec who met a 14 year old girl "friend". They were eventually both arrested on allegations they had illegal sexual contact with minors they met through the Web site. In Connecticut, police in are looking into seven cases of sexual assault of minors by alleged MySpace creeps, and the site itself is targeted for investigation by that State's Attorney General.

MySpace has also become a place for kids to threaten and provoke each other. In March, two 16 year old girls were charged in Ohio with aggravated menacing & delinquency after using MySpace as a forum in January to threaten to kill another girl in their class. The Asheville NC article quoted above mentions some students suspended for 10 days for threats made on the site. The Boston Globe reported on an Easthampton 18-year-old was charged with harassment and second-degree breach of peace for allegedly threatening local High School students on MySpace.com. A Costa Mesa, Ca middle school recently suspended the creator of an invitation to join a group, after it was discovered the groups message board contained threats and anti-semitic slurs & asked who would like to 'take a shotgun and blast her in the head over a thousand times?". . . Also suspended in this incident were some 20 other students who simply viewed the invitation.

That's guilt by MySpace association...

But it's part of a larger trend, as a recent survey of over a thousand youths grades 4th - 8th conducted by "i-SAFE America" showed that 42% of kids had been "bullied" online.

In February it was annouced MySpace would hire a so-called "Security Czar"
Schools with minors are starting to ban the use of the site in it's libraries & on it's networked computers, and according to the Financial Times recently the management of MySpace themslves deleted around 250,000 user profiles deemed "risque" , "too young" or using "hate speech". Amongst those using hate speech on the site are cops...a report in Kentucky's Herald-Leader describes a handful of local police officers who may be reprimanded for comments and photos posted to MySpace.com that deride gays and the mentally disabled.



Put 2 + 2 together you kids and cops and get real lives...

or just wait for Playboy's "Girls of MySpace " issue...

oh, and the 250,000 profiles deleted by the new MySpace Czar, equal barely one day's average sign ups...

Here's some tacky tunes that yer likely to find pumpin' on the profile pages of my tween-age 'space" nation , maybe even some cops...

Eminem - Shake That

TI - What You Know

T-Pain - I'm In Love With A Stripper

Dem Franchize Boys - Lean Wit it, Rock Wit it

Madonna - Hung Up

Pink - Trouble

Juvenile - Rodeo ( instrumental)

Marilyn Manson- Another Brick In the Wall