Understanding the Allure of MySpace

MySpace was certainly not the first social networking Web site. You can argue that the idea of social networking on the Internet goes back to when people started putting together mailing lists from email accounts so they could send mass messages to friends and family. MySpace wasn't the first social-networking tool on the Internet, so why has it become the most popular networking site? Here are a few theories:

• Artist-friendly tools: The biggest thing MySpace offered to users that other social network sites didn't match was the ability for musicians to store and share music tracks on the site with fans. As musicians signed up to take advantage of the service, they publicized their new resource to their fans. These fans, looking to stay connected to their favorite groups or a cool music scene, followed the artists to MySpace and began inviting their friends. The site took off from there.

• Search tools and categories: On MySpace, you can include your personal interests and hobbies in your profile. The site also lets you add into your page any schools you've attended, businesses you've worked for, or industries you follow. All these points of contact make it easier for people to filter through to find current friends, old contacts, or other users with shared interests to add to their own friends lists.

• The dating scene: The second wave of MySpace users was dominated by young adults, many of whom were single and looking for a way to meet other singles. MySpace offers the opportunity to set up a profile that lets the world know you're on the dating scene and open to contact from interested individuals. (Of course, later waves of users were filled by people who were in relationships and not interested in propositions from strangers.)

• Many services collected in one site: Before MySpace, you could find different sites for social networking, sharing photos, posting music files, showing video, starting a Web diary, sending out event invitations, keeping an appointment calendar, and sending or receiving messages. MySpace collected all those services under one site. MySpace has become a one-stop shop for the things most regular people like to do on the Web.

Customizable pages: Although you could load tons of information about yourself on other social network sites, you couldn't do much to change the way your personal page looked. You were stuck with the same white/silver/blue look that everyone used. MySpace opened up their pages to modification so people could customize the look, and now those pages are designed with help from editing tools or good old-fashioned HTML (short for HyperText Markup Language, the language used to design Web pages). A MySpace user can change his or her page from the boring white/silver/blue to including a cool background photo, individualized text fonts, and a customized pointer — all without needing any programming experience. After all, this is your Space, and if you're going to be having company over, it had best resemble your personality and your style.

• Sharing with a huge audience: Marketers want to get the word out about their products to as many people as they can. Filmmakers and comedians know their success hinges on getting as many eyes and ears on their work as possible. Individuals who have a message they want to share with the masses know it's better to share it once with a lot of people rather than many times with small groups. With millions of users, MySpace has built the audience for any of these user types. As the MySpace audience grows, so will the number of people who use MySpace to express themselves and build an audience.

• Hanging out with your friends: Humans are social animals. In an age where everyone is strapped for time, MySpace provides a forum where you can contact and stay in touch with your friends or make new friends from any computer hooked to the Internet at any time of day. Being on MySpace is being part of an in-crowd.

For all the reasons people join MySpace, you can find as many reasons that MySpace haters offer for not joining. The popular ones are that the haters don't have time to spend on the site or the site is just for kids. If you don't want to spend the time, then you shouldn't. But recent research shows that an increasing number of MySpacers (almost a majority, in fact) are over the age of 25. If these reasons for joining up don't entice you, you should be able to live a full life without MySpace.