LINKS
Pimp MySpace
Bigoo
Skize
Glitter Graphics
Your Cool Profile
Flash Game Codes
MySpace Support
My Profile Pimp
Doobix
Free Code Source
Voltoor
MySpace Icon
AwesomeBods
MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. MySpace also features an internal search engine and an internal e-mail system. It is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, USA, while its parent company is headquartered in New York City, and it also has a back up server there. According to Alexa Internet, it is currently the world's fourth most popular English-language website, the sixth most popular website in any language and the third most popular website in the United States, though it has topped the chart on various weeks(note it is possible that other websites have a greater number of unique visitors). The service has gradually gained more popularity than similar websites to achieve nearly 80 percent of visits to online social networking websites. It has become an increasingly influential part of contemporary popular culture, especially in English speaking countries. The company employs 300 staff, is owned by News Corporation, and does not disclose revenues or profits separately from News Corporation. With the 100 millionth account being created on August 9, 2006 and a news story claiming 106 million accounts on September 8, 2006, the site reportedly attracts new registrations at a rate of 230,000 per day.
MySpace is also home to various musicians, filmmakers, celebrities, and comedians who upload songs, short films, and other work directly onto their profile. These songs and films can also be embedded in other profiles, an interconnectedness which adds to MySpace's appeal.
HISTORY
Before the creation of the current social networking website, the myspace.com domain name was already registered in 1998 to a San Francisco-based online storage and file sharing firm. Registration was free and users were able to obtain a small disk quota which would gradually increase if they referred new members to the site. Due to slow service and a lack of revenue, the original website shut down and sold all of its users' information in 2001.
The corporate history of MySpace as well as the status of Tom Anderson as a MySpace founder has been a matter of some public dispute.
In January 2006, Fox announced plans to launch a UK version of MySpace in a bid to "tap into the UK music scene" which they have since done (see MySpace International). They also plan to launch in China and possibly other countries.
Contents of a MySpace Profile
Blurbs, Blog, Multimedia
Profiles contain two standard "blurbs": "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" sections. Profiles also contain an "Interests" section and a "Details" section. However, fields in these sections will not be displayed if members do not fill them in. Profiles also contain a blog with standard fields for content, emotion, and media. MySpace also supports uploading images. One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image," the image that will be seen on the profile's main page, search page, and as the image that will appear to the side of the user's name on comments, messages, etc. MySpace has also added the option to upload videos via the MySpace Videos service, that are played via a standalone Flash player.
Friend Space
The User's Friends Space contains a count of a user's friends, a "Top Friends" area, and a link to view all of the user's friends. Users can choose a certain number of friends to be displayed on their profile in the "Top Friends" area. The "Top Friends" used to be restricted to eight friends. People bypassed this limitation by using third-party tools to emulate a "Top X" friends. Currently, MySpace allows 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, or 24 friends to be displayed in the "Top Friends" area.
Comments
Below the User's Friends Space(by default) is the "comments" section, wherein the user's friends may leave comments for all viewers to read. MySpace users have the option to delete any comment and/or require all comments to be approved before posting. If a user's account is deleted, every comment left on other profiles by that user will be deleted.
Profile Customization
MySpace allows users to modify their user pages. Although JavaScript is not allowed, HTML/XHTML and CSS can be used to change the vast majority of the profile to the user's preference. Users also have the option to add embedded music into their profiles via MySpace Music, a service that allows bands to post songs onto their respective profiles. Videos, flash-based content, and almost anything else can be added, much like a standard HTML page. Since many users of MySpace do not know HTML, third-party code generating websites have appeared to help these users.
MySpace Features
Software
The company's servers are all running Microsoft IIS 6.0 on the Windows Server 2003 OS.
Bulletins
Bulletins are messages that are sent out to everyone on a MySpace user's friends list. Bulletins can be useful for notifying an entire friends list, without resorting to messaging users individually. Some users choose to use Bulletins as a service for delivering chain messages about politics, religion, or anything else. Bulletins are deleted after ten days.
Groups
MySpace has a Groups feature which allows a group of users to share a common page and message board.
Language editions
Since early 2006 MySpace has offered the option to access the service in different regional versions, much like Google and other search engines. In reality the user is currently directed to their "local" site irrespective of attempts to explicitly choose another. These options offered are: Global site, Australia, France (currently in beta), Germany (currently in beta), Ireland, UK, and US (although this is in fact identical to the "global" site).
The alternative regional versions present automated content according to locality (e.g. UK users see other UK users as "Cool New People", and UK oriented events and adverts, etc.), offer local languages other than English, or accommodate the regional differences in spelling and conventions in the English-speaking world (e.g. United States: "favorites", mm/dd/yyyy; the rest of the world: "favourites", dd/mm/yyyy).
MySpace Mobile
American mobile phone provider Helio released a series of mobile phones in early 2006 that can utilize a service known as MySpace Mobile to access and edit one's profile and communicate with, and view the profiles of, other members. Additionally, UIEvolution is currently developing a mobile version of MySpace for a wider range of carriers.
