Comments MySpace Script

In its initial stages, MySpace was a virtual gathering spot for teenagers mostly, and not much more than that. There are still lots of teenagers on MySpace and there’s still a lot of socializing going on, but MySpace has evolved. These days, companies and individual marketers both have a significant presence on MySpace. MySpace, in a very real way, has become a tool.

There are different reasons for having a MySpace page, but most of the reasons beyond socializing come down to a common motivation: money. It’s not much surprise that money is a motivation. The most common motivation of all is probably money. The surprise may be that it’s actually possible to make money on MySpace. It is possible to make money on MySpace, and it can happen in one of two ways.

People can, and do, sell things on MySpace. Some people sell things directly, some people sell things by placing an affiliate link to follow on their profile page. Selling something directly on MySpace likely won’t get someone very far. MySpace is still considered by most users to be a social site, not a commerce site, and the appearance of actively selling may have some negative residual effects. As is the case with anything, however, if something is unique and meets a desire, people will want to have it.

The second method for making money on MySpace, the most common and the preferred method, is to advertise. MySpace is completely ad driven: MySpace places advertisement on literally every one of its site pages. Individuals, or companies, with MySpace profiles can engage in the same type of strategy. A well-done MySpace profile can and is used as a calling card. All movies presumed to have a teen audience have a MySpace profile. These profiles are splashy, and colorful, and at least attempt to be fun, but their sole purpose is to advertise a product.

Many individual marketers, Internet marketers especially, have MySpace profiles. A marketer’s MySpace profile typically serves to establish the marketer as an online money making expert. Marketers likely turn to MySpace for networking possibilities, and also because MySpace is free to use. If nothing else, MySpace provides a free online presence. That reason solely is a reason for some people to create a MySpace profile.

MySpace additionally allows for the personalization of a profile’s url, to easily connect a profile to a person’s name, for example, or to a company name. One thing to bear in mind when thinking of establishing a MySpace presence is that all MySpace profiles have advertising on them, and that the user has no control whatsoever over a profile’s prepackaged advertising content.


- Zinn Jeremiah

MySpaces notoriety is truly phenomenal. MySpace is familiar, literally, to people in every corner of the world. This level of recognition might seem to be something admirable or coveted. Further thought about things however might bring about a different perspective. Time and again famously popular brands have seen their appeal plummet back to earth. Theres a fine line in other words between popularity and overexposure. It seems that at some point, people just get plain tired of seeing or hearing about the same old thing.

In the case of MySpace, what was once mostly a virtual gathering spot for teens has been covered from every different angle by the mass media. The media came and told MySpace’s story to millions of people throughout the world. This is the nature of the media, after all. The appearance of the media in MySpace land however may have given core MySpace users the impression that their territory had been intruded upon, and even sold out to mainstream interests.

The feeling of MySpace going corporate may have left a particularly significant impression on MySpace users. Burger King and WalMart, two big companies if there ever were any, once had profiles on MySpace. Both profiles have since been abandoned and at least in WalMart?s particular case their MySpace profile seems to have been removed in response to bad publicity. It seems many MySpace users were not happy with WalMart?s presence on MySpace, and expressed as much through harsh comments left on WalMart?s MySpace profile. So the profile is now gone.

The WalMart scenario may have been a lesson not just that for that company, but for MySpace as well. MySpace has apparently been surpassed in popularity by Facebook, the networking site explicitly for students. Is this due to the general feeling that MySpace had become overrun and corrupted by commercial interests? It?s a possibility certainly. It?s notable that Facebook does show advertising, but under the Facebook format corporate profiles are not allowed: not yet anyway. Perhaps users of any online site have accepted seeing advertising, but not the notion of embracing advertisers as regular members of the community.

All of this isn?t to suggest that MySpace is now somehow irrelevant: there are still hundreds of millions of MySpace profiles, and almost certainly millions and millions of MySpace members. But if there is something to be taken from the response to corporate presences on MySpace it may be that business sites should be presented with a light touch and without an obvious motivation to increase sales or to generate publicity. As with any other community, becoming an accepted part of MySpace takes time and a respectful effort.


- Zinn Jeremiah