MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0 (Exhaustive Edition)

Does Trent Lapinski's exposé about MySpace (digest version here) read like a conspiracy theory? Sure. Does our boss think it's over-outraged? Sure, but you can't trust him, he believes in the lone gunman and a real moon landing. Buy the anger or not, this guest feature story is a great read for those of us who are goddamn sick of Tom, Tom, Tom.

By Trent Lapinski

By now, everyone knows what MySpace is--or at least, they think they do. The generally held assumption is that MySpace is a social networking site: "a place for friends," as their slogan puts it. In reality, MySpace is the next generation of marketing, advertising and promotion, exquisitely disguised as social networking. Simply put, MySpace.com is Spam 2.0.

Spam in Sheep's Clothing

On July 11th, 2006, Hitwise reported that MySpace had "surpassed Yahoo! Mail as the most visited domain on the Internet for US Internet users." Clearly, MySpace has become almost ubiquitous--everyone and their mom have a profile up, from the fourteen-year old girl next door to Madonna. Tom Anderson himself--one of the site's founders and every MySpace user's number one "friend"--has over 109 million pals with profiles, and that's just today; by next week that number could easily have increased by millions. What's interesting is that most users don't know that Tom Anderson is more of a PR scheme than anything else--the mascot designed to give a friendlier feel to a site created by a marketing company known for viral entertainment websites, pop-up advertising, spam, spyware, and adware.

Most users believe that MySpace started as some kind of fluke--a happy accident that began in Anderson's bedroom or garage--and many still don't wonder, know, or care about the site's real business history and model. Heralded as a haven of DIY self-expression, MySpace was actually created by executives whose backgrounds are anchored in spam and mass marketing, and who are tied to investment scandals. With his almost alternateen good looks, Tom Anderson has served as an exceptionally convincing distraction. The PR campaign is one of MySpace's two strokes of genius, brilliant, but not groundbreaking.

The real genius of MySpace lies in it's re-imagining and repackaging of spam. While most internet users expend time and energy attempting to keep it out, MySpace is spam that they actually invite in .

by : http://www.valleywag.com/tech/myspace/myspace-the-business-of-spam-20-exhaustive-edition-199924.php