MySpace is now truly a household word. On its face that
would seem to be a good thing, but a closer inspection may
reveal something different. There's a tendency among the
public, sometimes, to tune out or even become resentful
towards highly popular brands, whether those brands be
people or products. Maybe this reflects enviousness towards
the material success people presume popularity brings, or
maybe it's just that something people see or hear about
often becomes tiresome.
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. As the mass media has
told the story of MySpace, naturally millions of people far
and wide have heard. 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. At
one time, mega companies Burger King and WalMart had
MySpace profiles. Both profiles have since been abandoned
and at least in WalMart's case it appears their profile was
removed as a direct result of generating 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 certainly a valid
possibility. 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 is a freelance author. To read more of Zinn's
writings, visit
http://www.hubonline.biz/website-content.htm . For MySpace
profile assistance, visit
http://www.hubonline.biz/juice-your-profile.htm .
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