All-new MySpace beta
I now fully regret my earlier ambivalence about MySpace. As it turns out, the site is only lame when you have 600 or 700 friends. Having crossed the magic threshold of 1,000 MySpace pals, I truly understand what all the fuss is about.
The difference is MySpace Advanced, and you can only access it when you have more than 1,000 friends. It’s beta, and I guess I clicked on some sort of non-disclosure button when I accepted. But it’s too great a secret to keep to myself.
Here are just some of the improvements you get with MySpace Advanced:
Full CSS styling. No longer do you have to hide formatting in weird text boxes.
AJAX-y goodness. You can delete rogue comments in-place, or drag-and-drop elements on the page.
HTML tag destroyers. Not only can you turn off HTML graphics in comments, you can automatically delete any comment that tries to use them.
Lameness filters. Sick of people leaving ASCII graphics as comments? Just click the checkbox and they’re history.
Smarter ads. Even though it says “gay” in your “orientation” field, the system knows you might be interested in something other than a shirtless guy for Gay.com.
Education screening. The system parses every message, comment and profile blurb a user writes, generating an estimated education level for the user. I have my threshold set to “College Grad,” which effectively silences the stupid people.1
The new version is terrific. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist.
Even with a thousand so-called friends, the system is just as lame and frustrating as it was when it was just me and Tom.2 So, this is my way of saying goodbye to MySpace in all its craptastic-ness. See ya. Wouldn’t want to be ya.
- You can also set a top education limit, good for shutting out snarky screenwriters. ↩
- By the way, has anyone else noticed that “Tom” has formatting errors on his page, and he’s the freakin’ spokesperson? Check his “Movies” section. ↩
Articles
March 6th, 2007 at 11:46 am
As far as the Education Screening goes, setting it to “College Grad” wouldn’t effectively silence the stupid people. It would just limit them to just the stupid with wealthy parents.
At least that’s what my experiences have told me.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
MySpace Advanced does exist - it’s called Facebook.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
John, when you first started getting into web design and what not, what were some of the resources you used to educate yourself? I spend so much time on the net and recently realized I should probably better utilize my time and learn how to create a site and whatnot. However, there’s a ton of resources out there and I have no idea where to start. Any tips to get me started would be appreciated.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Glad to see you’ve moved from ambivalence to outright dislike. It’s the only way to be.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
You totally had me.
Anyway, the facinating thing about myspace is that any other company would have been hard at work doing the things you suggested. Myspace, though, looked at their site priorities and said “People need to be able to make their backgrounds blinking hot pink” and then just called it a day. The stupid site still exploded.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Funnily enough, this same entry was double-posted on your MySpace blog, and one of them is quite wonky-looking.
Or perhaps you just intended to post it in Courier New for those of us used to using it.
March 6th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
You had me as well. If you dump your MySpace profile you’re going to reduce my friends number by a fifth. But I can’t blame you.
March 6th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
MySpace is the landfill of the internet. The only reason I haven’t deleted my account is because I don’t want to subject myself to that website long enough to actually delete it. Yuck.
March 6th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
I don’t do MySpace and I never will. I find it really instrusive and totally annoying. 4 years from now when MySpace becomes a thing of the past, I’ll sit here and just dread the “new” thing to hit the internet.
March 6th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I don’t see the cause of tribulation. Myspace is an easy way to stay - or get - in touch with people. It’s like emailing - with a profile. It’s pretty efficient as long as you don’t go nuts on it.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Everyone goes nuts on it.
But joking aside, I just think it’s yet another way for us to not communicate personally. The text messaging, the blackberries, the sidekicks, everyone always on their I-Pods…
It’s just too much.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Oh yeah, and it’s ugly as hell.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Way to go, John. I wish my friends, the sole reason I still have an account at that hellhole, would flock to Vox or something so I could be rid of it myself.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
For all its drawbacks (and there are too many to list), Myspace does excel as a standarized marketing portal to pimp your work. A simple bulletin or blog can let all your fans and friends know about your work as soon as they log into the Myspace community. To boot, Myspace is a self-perpetuating network: the more friends you get, the more useful it can be, which explains why its popularity has skyrocketed. I stay more in contact with old friends because seeing their profile page avatar inspires me to write to them. Not so with an email client. Or a cell phone address book.
Of course, I don’t rely Myspace as my only marketing outlet — I use it as a supplement to my personal blog, and I’m not alone. Kevin Smith is a perfect example of how Myspace power can be skillfully leveraged… then again, his fan base consists of a younger crowd who already use Myspace.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:25 am
The thing that bugs me about it is it’s the web for idiots. Perhaps I’m taking this personally because I learnt taught myself web design, how to program in PHP and ASP, how to sort out my own hosting and domain name registration… then all these jackasses come along, and they don’t have to.
Maybe I’m jealous. But if they let people just jump into cars without passing their test, there’d be an awful lot of car crashes.
March 7th, 2007 at 2:25 am
nice john.
come on now… we know tom has no real friends.
the poor guy occasionally lounging around the chateau marmont trolling for myspace groupies & being depressed he got screwed by murdock. -with all that on ones plate, how could he possibly be deep into r&d?
March 7th, 2007 at 7:53 am
“…it’s the web for idiots.”
Most people are idiots. For a vast community for geniuses go to johnaugust.com. Oh wait, you’re already here… man, do I feel like a jackass now.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I am of course guilty of branding people idiots whilst also investing the new verb ‘learnt taught’.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:04 am
No worries, it’s always good to invest new verbs.
March 7th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Amen and Hallelujah! I deleted my page a little over two weeks ago. I had no idea how liberating that would be.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:16 am
On the subject of inventing new words, one thing that drove me crazy was the button was labeled, “Post New Blog.” Clicking it doesn’t create a new blog. Rather, it means to post something to your existing blog.
For someone unschooled in how the whole interweb works (i.e. most MySpace users), the button wrongly teaches that a blog is a single post. “I wrote a blog this morning.”
Grr.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Yeah, but if you have 1002 friends, you have an instant way to communicate with 1002 people. If you wanted to market or disseminate something, I couldn’t think of a better way to do it.
I know people who have over one-quarter million people as friends!!!! That’s marketing power if used in the right way.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Invent. Invent. Stupid lack of articficially intelligent spell checker.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Hilarious, Oli.
I agree with Kevin-11.
Twelve too.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
It’s really lame that MySpace doesn’t even notify you when you can access MySpace Advanced. I have 3k friends and never knew about it.
Thank you, John, for finally telling me so I can change settings to prevent that @*%$&!@! spam-html post of the sun that gets posted on my comments section 4x every day. FIND OUT WHO IS SPYING ON YOUR MYSPACE CLICK HERE!!! Argh!
March 7th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
That was quite witty.
March 7th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Adam:
Yeah but who are these people? And how do they affect your business? MySpace certainly doesn’t affect box office grosses. I don’t think anyone has ever sold a screenplay via MySpace.
Basically you can market something to 250,000 that won’t affect your product in the least.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Kevin Smith utilised myspace friends to market Clerks 2 quite cleverly, awarding prizes to people who promoted his film the most by posting about it, and listing all the Clerks 2 myspace friends in the credits of the film.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Another John:
Which is interesting considering that Clerks II grossed the least of all of his films since Chasing Amy, a full 10 years ago.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Big whoop… CLERKS II made practically the same as JERSEY GIRL (at a much lower budget!) and only 5 m less than both DOGMA and JASBSB.
AND it still made more money that his first three movies combined!
All thanks to bis MySpace buddies…
March 7th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Yeah MySpace was GREAT for Clerks II…
March 7th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Kevin,
if MySpace sucks so much, why don’t you delete the MySpace site to your film SERIAL?
– honest question — !
March 7th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Because the Executive Producer put it up. My co-director and I didn’t have a choice. We have a movie website (www.serialthemovie.com), so I think the MySpace thing is kind of useless.
But if it was up to me it wouldn’t be there!!!
March 7th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Here’s what everyone is missing.
I’m a single dad with four kids. Three teenage daughters and a teenage son. Oops. My oldest daughter is now 20, so that’s no longer quite true. Almost four teenagers.
They LOVE MySpace. Yeah, I know. I’ve failed them major. No flames please. But our parents thought our music was lame, and couldn’t understand why anyone would follow the Dead. In fact, my parents thought I was literally nuts for spending several years (after my military service and working as a paramedic in the inner cities) being on Staff for what many people today consider a cult. shrugs
We are not our children and our children are not us. It was ever thus.
MySpace is for kids, not for grownups. Once you get that, MySpace becomes useful for this purpose — keeping an eye on what is happening with your children, and learning with is happening with current teens. Want to know? Get on the friends lists of your own kids and of their friends, and then NEVER comment, NEVER mention again that you’re on line, never ever bring up anything you observe on line no matter how freaky it might be (to you.) Just watch and learn.
Thus endeth the lesson.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Footnote #1.
Holy shit to that.
Wait, was that snarky?
[This comment will self-destruct in five seconds. - the Management]
March 8th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Then, again, maybe setting a “top” limit means screening out those WITH higher education.
/academically-challenged … obviously
March 8th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I think you’re probably a really good, well meaning father. But man, that quote was kind of disturbing. I have a kid too. But I don’t know…I’d just rather TALK to him rather than SPY on him. But that’s just me.
But I think you’re basically right when you talk about who MySpace should be for. It’s always kind of sad when a 35 year old brags about having 50,000 friends. I think we proved that it doesn’t affect box office grosses in the least. So…party on 15 year olds!
March 8th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
I find that what Myspace is most useful for is music. I know I know, but if I hear about a band, and want to check out some music, its either go preview on a music purchase site, bleh, go to their flash based website and try to listen to it, or fly to myspace and hear mostly full versions of their song in an easy player. It’s for their more current songs, but still a good resource.
March 8th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Did anybody see the news report where they cross checked myspace with a small selection from a sex offenders registry & they confirmed about 800 matches? & those offenders had lots of children as friends. Myspace is a disturbing site. I prefer real people & conversation that goes beyond the “We got so trashed last night.” or the “I hate my life, check tomorrows post to see why”. Well, there is my 2 cents. I wanted to fit in something about “..the depressed suburbanite posts his daily self-loathing haiku…” but I didn’t know where it would fit. Hey look at that. It fit right there.
March 8th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Kevin….Jessica Bendinger used MySpace to build grassroots support for her movie- the gymnastics one- and it worked great. I still think MySpace is an awful, unreliable application but it can produce results in a viral marketing sense. It works great for musicians. It would be great if NewsCorp ponied u p the money and built a solid infrastructure for MySpace. That and more flexible customization options would get me semi-onboard.
March 8th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Jessica:
I don’t necessarily want to be argumentative but I assume that the Jessica Bendinger movie you’re referring to was Stick It. That movie was released by a major studio (Disney) at over 2000 screens. The studio probably spent at least 10 million dollars on advertising, it was heavily touted as the next Bring It On and when all was said and done…it raked in a Worldwide total of 31 million dollars. I’m not sure how MySpace helped compared to a major motion picture studio but I can unequivocally tell you that it didn’t work great.
BUT I will agree with you regarding music. When we were looking for composers about 1/4 of all the applicants directed us to their MySpace web page and it’s pretty easy to navigate through the music tracks.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Kevin -
I’m a stunningly good father. And I don’t spy on my kids.
They know I’m on MySpace — you can’t be a “Friend” without asking permission from someone and that person explicitly adding you to their account. In fact, my kids often tell me to go to their MySpace to check out a photo they’ve posted up or to look at something one of their friend has said. What I’m saying is that MySpace is a social space for teens, not for grownups. And that the best way there for a grownup to learn is to keep your mouth shut and listen.
I worked as a paramedic in big-city inner-city neighborhoods and also as a flight paramedic (both fixed and rotary wing), after my military service (where I also worked as a flight medic). I learned both as a paramedic and when I got to come home, how to shut-up and listen — because when you do you learn a lot.
In an emergency scene when everyone is panicking and the scene is filled with noise, one must shut-up, then listen through all the crap for what matters — quickly and clearly. Sometimes you have to do this while the noise or the heat or the threat from the crowd is so intense it knocks people to the ground, and yes, I’m speaking literally. Success in emergency medicine starts with the ability to listen.
When I’d get home to Tucson, not at first, but later in my EMS career, the husband of my mom’s best friend was a Congressman. He wasn’t of my political party, but what the hell. If I had time when I was in town, I’d drive him around and act as his body man for the day. Mostly, I’d shut up and listen as he talked with all these important people — US Senators, Mayors, other Congressman, local business people, bank presidents, constituents, Staff. I kept my mouth shut and my ears open, and not even because I didn’t have something to say — as after a while I did have something to say — but mostly because the language they were speaking, politics, was foreign to me. I needed to learn the language.
When one is entering into any domain of learning, the single most important act anyone can do in my carefully considered opinion is, shut-up and learn the language. One way to consider MySpace is an opportunity for grownups to learn the current language and world of teenagers. This world changes all the time, and this world changes as your teens change. I use MySpace to learn the world and language of my teens.
Not in secret. My presence on MySpace isn’t secret any more than my being present in meeting being in the same room with the Congressman was a secret. But if you just shut-up for a while and listen, it’s really remarkable how quickly people forget you’re there and start to speak candidly — at which point you can learn. In fact, if you are committed to being quiet, to becoming invisible… you… just… vanish.
Finally Kevin, one last remark. Part of why I’m a great dad is I don’t let my kids get away with sticking others with the blame for their own emotional responses. Now you’re not one of my kids and I have no permission to coach you. But as someone who has appreciated your posts for quite a while, I’m confident you’re capable of handling a straight response.
You said, I think you’re probably a really good, well meaning father. But man, that quote was kind of disturbing. I have a kid too. But I don’t know…I’d just rather TALK to him rather than SPY on him. But that’s just me.
No, Kevin — The quote wasn’t “kind of disturbing”. You were disturbed. I said what I said, and your interpretation was to be disturbed. Please take responsibility for your own emotional reactions, rather than blaming the quote which is a third-person non-entity. It would have been straighter to have said, “You disturbed me” rather than blaming the poor innocent quote which has no existence outside of you saying “the quote”.
The problem of course is, I didn’t disturb you; you were disturbed.
What would be fully straight would be, “I read what you wrote and was triggered.” You could continue with, “What triggered me is…” and then tell us. It will be something about you, not about me or what I said.
Again, I’m not trying to give you crap nor am I simply speaking in semantics. But it is this kind of languaging which results in people confusing the source of their emotional responses.
Said simply, it isn’t something out there which causes my emotional response. If it is, then I’m a victim of the world and can do nothing but wait for the world to clobber me and then react emotionally. No. I am the person whom has emotions. Stuff out there may trigger those emotional responses, but I am the person to whom those emotions are happening.
When we speak of our emotions this way, we speak in a language in which we are in charge of our own emotions, not anyone else. Once one becomes facile with this way of being with one’s emotional space, one gains a degree of control over emotions not here before present.
Best,
Jesse “Doc” Wendel/Seattle
PS. John — you’re welcome to give Kevin my private email address if he requests so we can take this off line.
March 8th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Can’t we all just get along?
Whose up for some Final Draft 7 Demo Disc ultimate frisbee?
March 9th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Thank you, John. I also really don’t see the point of Myspace or Bebo or any of that shite, unless you’re a struggling band. It’s blogs all the way for me.
March 9th, 2007 at 5:07 am
One thing I also absolutely feckin detest about Myspace or Bebo is that if you ever party with anyone who has one, you lose all your privacy. If they bring a camera you end up on their site, in their album, trollied (drunk), and looking like hell for everyone to see. It’s like living the life of an anonymous celebrity. Very irritating.
March 11th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Jesse, It is true that MySpace is for the young folk, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for teenagers. I’m 19 and I can’t stand MySpace. I know a lot of people my age who feel the same. When MySpace is the hallmark of your generation, it kind of makes you want to go postal on your generation. It makes us all look like a bunch of morons.
I know it’s not your doing, but this idea that MySpace somehow defines our youth (in all its bright colors, whorish tendencies, and terrible spelling) is sad. Partly because it’s not true of all of us, but partly because it is true of many of us.
March 15th, 2007 at 9:25 am
I tried MySpace for a year, I just mirrored my regular blog entries over there. I have 55 friends and only 7 cared to even subscribe to read the blog area of my page, and out of those I think 3 comment on a semi-regular basis. My Space is just a ME ME ME ME, who gives a shit about YOU type of deal, when online blogger type accounts have more of an interacting role
April 1st, 2007 at 9:55 pm
I just found out about virb.com
It pretty much seems to be this “myspace advanced” that you speak of. I haven’t done much with it though.
April 9th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Too funny, John.
I do have a MySpace account, but have gone from logging in 5 times a day (in the first month) to 5 times a week, maybe. I can see it’s purpose, but I find the Blogosphere more to my liking.
June 6th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I don’t know. I started a myspace but haven’t even taken the time to add a picture of myself. Maybe because I don’t keep any around. I was pushed towards facebook, and I think I like it more. It has a cleaner interface, along with a solid white background (No crappy childish backgrounds to speak of). Facebook is more professional and mostly college students or older post there. Give it a try, you might like it, but don’t burn me if it doesn’t work out.
July 6th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title All-new MySpace beta. Thanks for informative article