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Myspace
File:Myspace Login.jpg
Screenshot of the current Myspace homepage
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
Social networking service
Available in15 languages
FoundedSanta Monica, California (2003)
Headquarters
Beverly Hills, California
,
US
Area servedWorldwide
OwnerSpecific Media LLC
Founder(s)
Key peopleTim Vanderhook (CEO, Specific Media)
Justin Timberlake (Co-owner)
RevenueDecrease $109 million (2011 est.)[1]
Employees220[2]
URLmyspace.com
AdvertisingGoogle AdSense
RegistrationRequired
Users25 million (June 2012)[3]
LaunchedAugust 2003
Current statusActive

Myspace (previously styled as MySpace and My_____)[5] is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake.[6] Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California.[7][8] In June 2012, Myspace had 25 million unique U.S. visitors.[9]


Myspace was founded in 2003 and was acquired by News Corporation in July 2005 for $580 million.[10] From 2005 until early 2008, Myspace Aimed at a Gen Y audience was the most visited social networking site in the world, and in June 2006 surpassed Google as the most visited website in the United States.[11][12] In April 2008, Myspace was overtaken by Facebook in the number of unique worldwide visitors, and was surpassed in the number of unique U.S. visitors in May 2009,[13][14] though Myspace generated $800 million during the 2008 fiscal year.[15] Since then, the number of Myspace users has declined steadily in spite of several redesigns.[16] As of June 2012, Myspace was ranked 161st by total web traffic.[4]

MySpace had a significant influence in pop culture and music[17] and created a gaming platform that launched the successes of Zynga and Rock You, among others.[18] The site also started the trend of creating unique URLS for companies and artists.[19]

In June 2009, Myspace employed approximately 1,600 workers.[20] Since then the company has undergone several rounds of layoffs and by June 2011, Myspace had reduced its staff to around 200.[2] In June 2011, Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake jointly purchased the company for approximately $35 million.[21]

History

Beginnings: 2003-2005

Fox Interactive Media headquarters, 407 North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills, California, where Myspace is also housed.

In August 2003, several eUniverse employees with Friendster accounts saw potential in its social networking features. The group decided to mimic the more popular features of the website. Within 10 days, the first version of Myspace was ready for launch, implemented using ColdFusion.[16][22] A complete infrastructure of finance, human resources, technical expertise, bandwidth, and server capacity was available for the site. The project was overseen by Brad Greenspan (eUniverse's Founder, Chairman, CEO), who managed Chris DeWolfe (MySpace's starting CEO), Josh Berman, Tom Anderson (MySpace's starting president), and a team of programmers and resources provided by eUniverse.

The first Myspace users were eUniverse employees. The company held contests to see who could sign up the most users.[23] eUniverse used its 20 million users and e-mail subscribers to breathe life into MySpace,[24] and move it to the head of the pack of social networking websites. A key architect was tech expert Toan Nguyen who helped stabilize the Myspace platform when Brad Greenspan asked him to join the team.[25]

old logo
Original logo

The MySpace.com domain was originally owned by YourZ.com, Inc.,[26][27][28] intended until 2002 for use as an online data storage and sharing site. By 2004, it was transitioned from a file storage service to a social networking site. A friend, who also worked in the data storage business, reminded Chris DeWolfe that he had earlier bought the domain MySpace.com.[29] DeWolfe suggested they charge a fee for the basic Myspace service.[30] Brad Greenspan nixed the idea, believing that keeping Myspace free was necessary to make it a successful community.[31]

Rise to popularity: 2005-2008

Myspace quickly gained popularity among teenage and young adult social groups.

Some employees of Myspace, including DeWolfe and Berman, were able to purchase equity in the property before MySpace and its parent company eUniverse (now renamed Intermix Media) was bought. In July 2005, in one of the company's first major Internet purchases, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (the parent company of Fox Broadcasting and other media enterprises) purchased Myspace for US$580 million.[22][32] News Corporation had beat out Viacom by offering a higher price for the website,[33] and the purchase was seen as a good investment at the time.[33] Of the $580 million purchase price, approximately $327 million has been attributed to the value of Myspace according to the financial adviser fairness opinion.[34] Within a year, Myspace had tripled in value from its purchase price.[33] Tom Freston, chief executive officer, meanwhile lost his job soon after losing the bidding war for Myspace.[33] News Corporation saw the purchase as a way to capitalize on Internet advertising, and drive traffic to other News Corporation properties.[32]

Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser, Wendi Deng, and Rupert Murdoch with MySpace co-founders Anderson and DeWolfe at the 2006 Oxfam/MySpace Rock for Darfur event

In January 2006, Fox announced plans to launch a UK version of Myspace in a bid to "tap into the UK music scene"[35] which they have since done. They released a version in China[36] and have since launched similar versions in other countries.

The 100 millionth account was created on August 9, 2006,[37] in the Netherlands.[38]

On November 1, 2007, Myspace and Bebo joined the Google-led OpenSocial alliance, which already included Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning and SixApart. OpenSocial was to promote a common set of standards for software developers to write programs for social networks. Facebook remained independent. Google had been unsuccessful in building its own social networking site (Orkut was succeeding in Brazil but struggling in the U.S.) and was using the alliance to present a counterweight to Facebook.[39][40][41][42]

By late 2007 into 2008, Myspace was considered the leading social networking site, and consistently beat out main competitor Facebook in traffic. Initially, the emergence of Facebook did little to diminish Myspace's popularity; Facebook was targeted only at college students initially. At its peak, when News Corp attempted to merge it with Yahoo! in 2007, Myspace was valued at $12 billion.[43] [44]

Decline: 2008–present

On April 19, 2008, Facebook overtook Myspace in the Alexa rankings.[45][46] Since then, Myspace has seen a continuing loss of membership, and there are several suggestions for its decline.

One claim is that Myspace failed to innovate and stuck to a "portal strategy" of building an audience around entertainment and music, whereas Facebook and Twitter continually launched new features to improve the social-networking experience.[47][48]

A former Myspace executive suggested that the US$900 million three year advertisement deal with Google, while being a short-term cash windfall, was a handicap in the long run. That deal required Myspace to place even more ads on its already heavily advertised space, which made the site slow, more difficult to use, and less flexible. Myspace could not experiment with its own site without forfeiting revenue, while rival Facebook was rolling out a new clean site design.[49][50]

While Facebook focused on creating a platform that allowed outside developers to build new applications, Myspace built everything in-house. Shawn Gold, Myspace's former head of marketing and content, said "Myspace went too wide and not deep enough in its product development. We went with a lot of products that were shallow and not the best products in the world." The products division had introduced many features (communication tools such as instant messaging, a classifieds program, a video player, a music player, a virtual karaoke machine, a self-serve advertising platform, profile-editing tools, security systems, privacy filters, and Myspace book lists, among others), however these were often buggy and slow as there was insufficient testing, measuring, and iterating.[16]

Danah Boyd, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research, noted of social networking websites that Myspace and others were a very peculiar business—one in which companies might serially rise, fall, and disappear, as "Influential peers pull others in on the climb up—and signal to flee when it's time to get out". The volatility of social networks was exemplified in 2006 when Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal launched an investigation into minors' exposure to pornography on Myspace; the resulting media frenzy and Myspace's inability to build an effective spam filter gave the site a reputation as a "vortex of perversion". Around that time, specialized social media companies such as Twitter formed and began targeting Myspace users, while Facebook rolled out communication tools which were seen as safe in comparison to Myspace. Boyd compared the shift of white, middle-class kids from the "seedy" Myspace to the "supposedly safer haven" of Facebook, to the "white flight" from American cities; the perception of Myspace eventually drove advertisers away as well.[16] In addition, Myspace had particular problems with vandalism, phishing, malware and spam which it failed to curtail, making the site seem inhospitable.[51]

These have been cited as factors why users, who as teenagers were Myspace's strongest audience in 2006 and 2007,[51][52] had been migrating to Facebook. Facebook which started strong with the 18-to-24 group (mostly college students)[53] has been much more successful than Myspace at attracting older users.[54][55][56]

In 2009, around the time that Myspace underwent layoffs and a management shakeup, the site "relied on drastic redesigns as Hail Mary passes to get users back". However this may have backfired for Myspace, as it is noted that users generally disliked interface tweaks on rival Facebook (which avoided major site redesigns).[51] In June 2009, MySpace laid off 30 percent of its U.S. workforce.[57]

Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch was said to be frustrated that Myspace never met expectations, as a distribution outlet for Fox studio content, and missing the US$1 billion mark in total revenues.[58] That resulted in DeWolfe and Anderson gradually losing their status within Murdoch's inner circle of executives, plus DeWolfe's mentor Peter Chernin, the President and COO of News Corp. who was based in Los Angeles, departed the company. Former AOL executive Jonathan Miller, who joined News Corp in charge of the digital media business, was in the job for three weeks when he shuffled Myspace's executive team in April 2009. Myspace President Tom Anderson stepped down while Chris DeWolfe was replaced as Myspace CEO by former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta.[59][60] A News Corp. meeting in March 2009 over the direction of Myspace was reportedly the catalyst for that management shakeup, with the Google search deal about to expire, the departure of key personnel (Myspace's COO, SVP of engineering, and SVP of strategy) to form a startup. Furthermore, the opening of extravagant new offices around the world was questioned, as rival Facebook did not have similarly expensive expansion plans yet it still attracted international users at a rapid rate.[16] The changes to Myspace's executive ranks was followed in June 2009 by a layoff of 37.5% of its workforce, reducing employees from 1,600 to 1,000.[16]

Myspace has attempted to redefine itself as a social entertainment website, with more of a focus on music, movies, celebrities, and TV, instead of a social networking website. Myspace also developed a linkup with Facebook that would allow musicians and bands to manage their Facebook profiles. CEO Mike Jones was quoted as saying that Myspace now is a "complementary offer" to Facebook Inc., which is "not a rival anymore."[44]

In March 2011, market research figures released by comScore suggested that Myspace had lost 10 million users between January and February 2011, and that it had fallen from 95 million to 63 million unique users during the previous twelve months.[61] Myspace registered its sharpest audience declines in the month of February 2011, as traffic fell 44% from a year earlier to 37.7 million unique U.S. visitors. Advertisers have been reported as unwilling to commit to long term deals with the site.[62]

In late February 2011, News Corp officially put the site up for sale, which was estimated to be worth $50–200 million.[63] Losses from last quarter of 2010 were $156 million, over double of the previous year, which dragged down the otherwise strong results of parent News Corp.[64][65] The deadline for bids, May 31, 2011, passed without any above the reserve price of $100 million being submitted[66] It has been said that the rapid deterioration in Myspace's business during the most recent quarter deterred many potent suitors.[64]

On June 29, 2011, Myspace announced to label partners and press via email that it had been acquired by Specific Media for an undisclosed sum.[67] CNN reported that Myspace sold for $35 million, and noted that it was "far less than the $580 million News Corp. paid for Myspace in 2005."[68] Rupert Murdoch went on to call the Myspace purchase a "huge mistake."[69] Time Magazine compared News Corporation's purchase of Myspace to Time Warner's purchase of AOL - a conglomerate trying to stay ahead of the competition.[33] Many former executives have gone onto further success after departing Myspace.[70]

Many games operated by popular developers such as Zynga, RockYou, and Playdom have closed their operations on Myspace.[71] In May 2012, the company settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding privacy concerns which included a 20 year regulatory privacy assessment program similar to that of Facebook and Google.[72]

In the fall of 2011 Justin Timberlake said, “I don't have anything on my plate other than think-tanking a lot of different ideas for MySpace”. [73] In January 2012, the company announced at CES that it would introduce MySpace TV with Panasonic.[74]

On September 24, 2012, Justin Timberlake, who has an ownership stake in the company, tweeted a link to a video showing a redesigned Myspace, which is dubbed the "new Myspace".[75]

Website features

Bulletins are posts that are posted on to a "bulletin board" for everyone on a Myspace user's friends list to see. Bulletins can be useful for contacting an entire friends list without resorting to messaging users individually. They have also become the primary attack point for phishing. Bulletins are deleted after ten days.

Myspace had a 'Groups' feature that allowed a group of users to share a common page and message board. Groups could be created by anybody, and the moderator of the group could choose for anyone to join, or to approve or deny requests to join. In November 2010, the group feature was turned off; a user clicking on the "Groups" link in the features menu was led to a page that announced that groups were being revamped, and the user could sign up to be informed of when groups would come back. However, As of May 2012 it now states in the Help page "For now, Myspace groups are not available. This is part of an ongoing effort to simplify Myspace and improve the experience for everyone. Although we removed groups, Myspace is still the perfect destination to stay connected.."

In early 2006, Myspace introduced Myspace IM, an instant messenger that uses one's Myspace account as a screen name. A Myspace user logs in to the client using the same e-mail associated with his or her Myspace account. Unlike other parts of MySpace, Myspace IM is stand-alone software for Microsoft Windows. Users who use Myspace IM get instant notification of new Myspace messages, friend requests, and comments. Myspace IM was added as a default feature of Myspace by the end of 2009.

In early 2007, Myspace introduced MySpaceTV, a service similar to the YouTube video sharing website. Myspace has been showing videos as early as 2006, but it has changed it name to MySpaceTV for a while. In 2009, MySpaceTV reverted back to Myspace Video once again. Myspace Video continues to be not as popular as other video sharing sites such as YouTube, but many sites had partnered with Myspace such as Hulu to promote their media to the Myspace community.

There were a variety of environments in which users could access Myspace content on their mobile phone. American mobile phone provider Helio released a series of mobile phones in early 2006 that could utilize a service known as Myspace Mobile to access and edit one's profile and communicate with, and view the profiles of other members.[76] Additionally, UIEvolution and Myspace developed a mobile version of Myspace for a wider range of carriers, including AT&T,[77] Vodafone[78] and Rogers Wireless.[79]

In April 2007, Myspace launched a news service called Myspace News which displays news from RSS feeds that users submit. It also allows users to rank each news story by voting for it. The more votes a story gets, the higher the story moves up the page.

Full service classifieds listing offered beginning in August 2006. It has grown by 33 percent in one year since inception. Myspace Classifieds was launched right at the same time the site appeared on the internet.[80]

In 2008, Myspace introduced an API with which users could create applications for other users to post on their profiles. The applications are similar to the Facebook applications. In May 2008, Myspace had added some security options regarding interaction with photos and other media. Many applications that are popular on Myspace had spin off versions on Facebook. The Myspace app Mafia Wars has became a Facebook sensation as well. On the other hand, Facebook applications such as Bumper Stickers and Farmville has been used in Myspace and was popular as well. Many application partnerships such as Zygna and Slide has been responsible from creating third party apps for use on both Myspace and Facebook, along with for use in the iTunes app store.

Launched April 29, 2008, ksolo.myspace.com is a combination of Myspace and kSolo, which allows users to upload audio recordings of themselves singing onto their profile page. Users' friends are able to rate the performances. A video feature is not yet available, but Tom Anderson, Myspace co-founder and president, states that it is in the works.[81]

Myspace Polls is a feature on Myspace that was brought back in 2008 to enable users to post polls on their profile and share them with other users.

MySpace uses an implementation of Telligent Community for its forum system.[82]

In 2009, Myspace also added a new status update feature. If a Myspace user has a Twitter account, the tweet will also update the Myspace status. (Facebook also has a similar feature.) It does, however, require that the two accounts be synched up together.

Moods

Moods are small emoticons that are used to depict a mood the user is in. The feature was added in July 2007. The mood feature as of 2010 is not included by default with the status updates, but could be shared on the homepage as a separate update.

Blurbs, blogs, 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. In the "Details" section, "Status" and "Zodiac Sign" fields will always display. 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. A photo editor powered by Fotoflexer is available which can not only crop images and adjust contrast but also convert the image to a cartoon or a line drawing made with neon lights, or put the user's face in a photo of a $100 bill. Flash, such as on MySpace's video service, can be embedded. Blogging features are also available. These features could be hidden on a profile by using the module customizer or using HTML and CSS codes. Photos could be displayed on the Myspace profile instead of a link that it was used in previous years. Photos can be made into a slide show.

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 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, and replaced with the comment saying "This Profile No Longer Exists". The option of using HTML in comments could be enabled or disabled.

Profile customization

Myspace allows users to customize their user profile pages by entering HTML (but not JavaScript) into such areas as "About Me", "I'd Like to Meet", and "Interests". Videos and flash-based content can be included this way. Users also have the option to add music to their profile pages via Myspace Music, a service that allows bands to post songs for use on Myspace.

A user can also change the general appearance of his or her page by entering CSS (in a <style> ... </style> element) into one of these fields to override the page's default style sheet using Myspace editors. This is often used to tweak fonts and colors. The fact that the user-added CSS is located in the middle of the page (rather than being located in the <head> element) means that the page will begin to load with the default Myspace layout before abruptly changing to the custom layout. A special type of modification is a div overlay, where the default layout is dramatically changed by hiding default text with <div> tags and large images.

There are several independent web sites offering Myspace layout design utilities which let a user select options and preview what their page will look like with them.

In 2008, Myspace launched a new Profile 2.0 as the next generation of the Myspace profile. Profile 2.0 features a cleaner interface and the ability to hide or show modules of the profile, along with customize the position of the module on the profile. Profile 2.0 layouts were released on the internet quickly as the use of the classic Myspace layouts do not work with profile 2.0. Profile 2.0 also was criticized for not looking right when trying to add custom CSS. To add custom CSS, the original theme has to be scrapped and many Myspace tweaks were not functional in the Profile 2.0 layout. In 2010, Myspace abandoned the Profile 1.0 layout and made Profile 2.0 the standard features of the profile. That promoted a cleaner interface and many themes are prepackaged with the customizer, along with the make a custom theme using various parameters of profile editing. Applications are used for decoration. While Profile 2.0 was the standard layout, a new profile was launched as an optional upgrade. The new profile was launched to keep up with the trends of the modern profile interface and attempts to give it a simpler and more mature design. Profile 3.0 intends to enable users more flexible customization and simpler theme building, but is not much different from the Profile 2.0 interface.

Music

Myspace profiles for musicians in the website's Myspace Music section differ from normal profiles in allowing artists to upload their entire discographies consisting of MP3 songs. The uploader must have rights to use the songs (e.g. their own work, permission granted, etc.). Unsigned musicians can use Myspace to post and sell music using SNOCAP, which proved popular among Myspace users.

Shortly after Myspace was sold to Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News and 20th Century Fox, in 2005, they launched their own record label, MySpace Records, in an effort to discover unknown talent currently on Myspace Music.[29] Regardless of the artist already being famous or still looking for a break into the industry, artists can upload their songs onto Myspace and have access to millions of people on a daily basis. Some well known singers such as Lily Allen and Sean Kingston gained fame through Myspace. The availability of music on this website continues to develop, largely driven by young talent. Over eight million artists have been discovered by Myspace and many more continue to be discovered daily.[83] In late 2007, the site launched The Myspace Transmissions, a series of live-in-studio recordings by well-known artists.

Myspace, in 2008, redesigned its music page adding new features for all musicians. These new features include the users' ability to create playlists, resembling the functions of Last.fm and other social music websites, along with the popular ProjectPlaylist that is popular on profiles. The new music features also archive songs from many popular artists, resembling the services of iTunes and Napster. In March 2010, listening to the full song in the search results has been disabled and replaced by 30 second samples. Myspace music also suggests songs based on the songs you are currently listening to or the songs you had added to the playlist, making it a music discovery tool. Myspace Music also added an improved playlist feature and artist profile, along with better music suggestion features, making it one of the highest rated and advanced music discovery sites on the Web.[citation needed] The site features charts similar to Billboard charts and it keeps track of the most popular music liked by users of all genres. It also enables user to view popular music in other countries of the world, mostly in Europe and major Asian countries such as China and Russia.

Redesigns

Throughout 2007 and 2008, Myspace redesigned many of the features of its site in both layout and in function. One of the first functions to be redesigned was the user home page, with features such as status updates, applications, and subscriptions being added in order to compete with Facebook. In 2008, the Myspace homepage was redesigned. Myspace Music was redecorated in 2008 and 2009, making it more like an online music store similar to iTunes and Rhapsody, along with the ability to create playlists. The use of Playlist.com on Myspace was abolished after the new Myspace music was launched. Some of the classic features of Myspace music, such as the artist directory, were also abolished.[citation needed]

On March 10, 2010, Myspace had some new features added like recommendation engine for new users which suggests games, music and videos based on their previous search habits. The security on Myspace was also accounted to, with the criticism of Facebook, to make it a safer site. The security of Myspace enables users to choose if the content could be viewed for Friends Only, 18 and older, or Everyone. The website will also release several mobile micro applications for Myspace gamers besides sending them games alerts. The site may release 20 to 30 micro apps and go mobile in 2011.[84]

In Summer 2010, the color scene of Myspace changed. The classic blue was replaced by a more white interface, to resemble the look and feel of Facebook, and to attract users of Facebook to join or rejoin Myspace. The simplification of the navigation bar also made it easier to find features quickly. In August 2010, the home page was modified to give new room for the Myspace Stream and to make it resemble Facebook further. Profile 3.0 was launched as well, which was an upgrade from profile 2.0. That enabled users to have more creativity with a simpler interface. Templates, like profile 2.0, are added too but it also enabled simpler template creation methods and module control. Building templates has become simpler; without the use of custom HTML or CSS, users can upload photos from their computers or find background images on the Internet by typing a URL, to give it more of a personal, more sentimental and individualist image than the prepackaged layout sites that were used before. HTML and CSS can be still used on the profile, but an HTML or CSS module must be added to promote a neater layout but still use the sponsored layout sites.

In September 2010, Myspace continued to work on improving the website. A photos section was added and the Fotoflexer app was added to photos. Myspace also enabled users to integrate their Myspace activity to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, to attract and show others that they are still on Myspace and to bring users back to Myspace. Myspace Movies was also added to promote movies and movie related media.

In October 2010, Myspace introduced a beta version of a new site design on a limited scale, with plans to switch all interested users to the new site in late November. Chief executive Mike Jones said the site is no longer competing with Facebook as a general social networking site. Instead, Myspace would be music-oriented and would target younger people. Jones believed most younger users would continue to use the site after the redesign, though older users might not. The goal of the redesign is to increase the number of Myspace users and how long they spend there. On October 26, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said, "Most investors have written off MySpace now," and he was unsure whether the changes would help the company recover.[85]

In November 2010, MySpace changed its logo to coincide with the new site design. The word "my" appears in the Helvetica font, followed by a symbol delineating a space. The logo change was announced on October 8, 2010 and appeared on the site on November 11, 2010.[86] Also that month, MySpace integrated with Facebook Connect – calling it "Mash Up with Facebook" in an announcement widely seen as the final act of acknowledging Facebook's domination of the social networking industry.[87][88]

In January 2011 it was announced that the Myspace staff would be reduced by 47%.[89] Despite the new design, user adoption continued to decrease.[90]

In September 2012 a new redesign was announced (but no date given) making Myspace more visual and apparently optimized for tablets. [91]

Criticism

Main article: Criticisms of Myspace

Myspace has met criticism on a range of issues, including online privacy, child safety, and censorship.

Corporate information

International versions

Since early 2006, Myspace has offered the option to access the service in different regional versions. 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).

Sites currently offered are:

MySpace Developer Platform (MDP)

On February 5, 2008, Myspace set up a developer platform which allows developers to share their ideas and write their own Myspace applications. The opening was inaugurated with a workshop at the MySpace, San Francisco offices two weeks before the official launch. The MDP[dead link‍] is based on the Open Social API which was presented by Google in November 2007 to support social networks to develop social and interacting widgets and can be seen as an answer to Facebook's developer platform. The first public beta of the Myspace Apps was released on March 5, 2008, with around 1,000 applications available.[92][93]

Myspace server infrastructure

At QCon London 2008,[94] Myspace Chief Systems Architect Dan Farino indicated that Myspace was sending 100 gigabits of data per second out to the Internet, of which 10 gigabits was HTML content and the remainder was media such as videos and pictures. The server infrastructure consists of over 4,500 web servers (running Windows Server 2003, IIS 6.0, ASP.NET and .Net Framework 3.5), over 1,200 cache servers (running 64-bit Windows Server 2003), and over 500 database servers (running 64-bit Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005) as well as a custom distributed file system which runs on Gentoo Linux.

As of 2009, Myspace has started migrating from HDD to SSD technology in some of their servers, resulting in space and power usage savings.[95]

Revenue model

Myspace operates solely on revenues generated by advertising as its revenue model possesses no user-paid features.[96] Through its Web site and affiliated ad networks, Myspace is second only to Yahoo! in its capacity to collect data about its users and thus in its ability to use behavioral targeting to select the ads each visitor sees.[97]

On August 8, 2006, search engine Google signed a $900 million deal to provide a Google search facility and advertising on Myspace.[98][99][100] Myspace has proven to be a windfall for many smaller companies that provide widgets or accessories to the social networking giant. Companies such as Slide.com, RockYou!, and YouTube were all launched on Myspace as widgets providing additional functionality to the site. Other sites created layouts to personalize the site and made hundreds of thousands of dollars for its owners most of whom were in their late teens and early twenties.[101][102]

In November 2008, Myspace announced that user-uploaded content that infringed on copyrights held by MTV and its subsidiary networks would be redistributed with advertisements that would generate revenue for the companies.[103]

Acquisition of Imeem

On November 18, 2009, Imeem was acquired by Myspace Music for an undisclosed amount. After the acquisition was completed on December 8, 2009, it was confirmed that Myspace Music bought Imeem for less than US$1 million in cash.[104][105] Myspace has also stated that they will be transitioning Imeem's users, and migrating all their play lists over to Myspace Music. On January 15, 2010, Myspace began restoring Imeem playlists.[106]

YouTube

Main article: YouTube

YouTube debuted in April 2005, and it quickly gained popularity on Myspace due to Myspace users' ability to embed YouTube videos in their Myspace profiles. Realizing the competitive threat to the new Myspace Videos service, Myspace banned embedded YouTube videos from its user profiles. Myspace users widely protested the ban, prompting Myspace to lift the ban shortly thereafter.[107]

Since then YouTube has become one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web,[108] outgrowing MySpace's reach according to Alexa Internet.[109] In July 2006 several news organizations reported that YouTube had overtaken Myspace.[110] In a September 2006 investor meeting, News Corp. COO Peter Chernin stated that: "If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, whether it's YouTube, whether it’s Flickr, whether it’s Photobucket or any of the next-generation Web applications, almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace. Given that most of their traffic comes from us if we build adequate if not superior competitors, I think we ought to be able to match them if not exceed them."[111]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Exclusive: The Bleak Financial Numbers From The MySpace Sale Pitch Book". TechCrunch. April 12, 2011. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
  2. ^ a b Vascellaro, Jessica E. (June 30, 2011). "News Corp. Selling Myspace to Specific Media". Online.wsj.com. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
  3. ^ "Site profile for MySpace". Google. Retrieved January 15, 2011.
  4. ^ a b "Myspace.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
  5. ^ John D. Sutter (October 27, 2010). "Praise for MySpace's new look - but that logo?". CNN. Retrieved December 31, 2011.
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Further reading

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