-My experience with myspace has been positive, at its best an extension of common interests/social networks, some pre-existing. Public posting of blog-level personal detail isn't my style, but many myspacers maintain or extend a social/hobby network with it rather than compensate for something lacking. I've gotten good squeezebox info. from myspacers.
-As with other venues, the level
of discourse depends on the maturity, wit and restraint of its correspondents-some of whom are young and cute. I don't need "young and cute"* particularly (The fossil speaks!) but the contact buzz of youthful intensity is a kick.
I tend to use myspace to keep in touch with other Irish music types who I've met at far-flung ITM weeks and weekends. I like it for that, and some of the music pages. There is a lot of junk, but I don't notice it much because I stay within my little Irish music network.
BillChin wrote:
It is the power of grassroots and peer-to-peer broadcasting. What it means for the political and economic structures remains to be seen, but things such as MySpace and the next big thing, will eventually have a big impact. More so because any kid, anywhere in the world may eventually have access. Not just the middle and upper classes in developed nations.
Wouldn't the very democratic nature of it lead it to be fairly impotent as a social force? Millions of different voices, each singing their song and beaming it into cyberspace doesn't sound to me like a movement of any sort. If it were to organise and structure itself that would be different, but then it wouldn't stay democratic for long.
That your best friend could be thousands of miles away is, for most of us, a new phenomenon. I would guess that 95% of internet fads will have virtually no significant lasting impact at all. About .01% will have a major and unpredictable impact. I suppose every IT guru in the world is trying to figure out which and why.
Tell us something.: I used to play pipes about 20 years ago and suddenly abducted by aliens. Not sure why... but it's 2022 and I'm mysteriously baack...
In the 1970s there was a big CB radio craze in America. It started with a hit song on the radio called "Convoy" about truckers talking on their CB radios, and suddenly millions of people were buying radios for their cars so they could talk to each other. After a few months, though, most of them discovered that they didn't have much to say beyond "10-4 good buddy, what's your 20?"
The blog craze that started a few years back was very similar to the CB radio phenomenon....lots of people kept online weblogs for a few weeks or months, but eventually discovered that nobody but their parents and a few very close friends were interested in reading them. Plus they discovered that it's work to maintain a blog, and that you have to think of new things to say if you don't just want to write about what you ate for breakfast or dish out the latest gossip about your school friends' relationships. There are a few good blogs out there with useful information and good writing, but they're by far the exception rather than the rule. Some people define blogs as "online diaries written by people with nothing to say, read by people with nothing to do."
Myspace seems to be a sort of cross between a blog and a personal website. The ones I've seen are ugly and confusing to navigate, but apparently easy to set up. It'll die out after a while when something better comes along. The thing I don't get is why professional musicians, artists, etc., who already have their own professionally designed websites with samples of their work, also have spaces on myspace. Is it really that cool to have a myspace site?
Some doofus started up an Irish Flute group on MySpace Can you spot me the link, Kelly? MySpace is blocked at work. So everybody go join because discussion seem to only happen monthly. There's a bellows pipe group that's even more lame so join that too.
But otherwise I don't do much on mySpace but follow up with some friends and catch up no the activities of some favorite musos. For the most part it's a bunch of kids shooting their mouths off and wasting their time away.
Sites like myspace, craigslist personals and even youtube make it seem like instead of people becoming more individual they are becoming more homogenized; maybe an adjunct of millions of people watching the same tv shows- the scary thing is that that homogenization seems to be heading more and more toward sort of a ghetto mentality.
Can you spot me the link, Kelly? MySpace is blocked at work. So everybody go join because discussion seem to only happen monthly. There's a bellows pipe group that's even more lame so join that too.
