Review of "MySpace: The Good, The Bad, and the Seriously Ugly 2/24/2008 6:44:46 AM
My Media Review
By Chris the Abducted Alien
Review written for My Media on AuthorsDen:
This review was given to Jill Carpenter for her article titled “The Good, Bad & Seriously Ugly.” And I do agree with her 100%. I do love the ease in which we are able to place articles, stories, etc. on the AuthorsDen website. I would however like to see a section for attachment of videos and possibly additional graphic input (not to much) for each article and/or news item posted. I have written a book of Poems called “An Angel for You,” and I am currently working on a second book called, “Abducted Alien: A True Story of United States Immigration and My Life,” tentatively scheduled for publication in mid-2008. In addition, I have been writing a weekly newsletter called “Twilight Zone USA,” in which I write commentaries in the hopes to try and reach Americans that are still unaware to what has really been happening to us for the past seven years with the current regime let by George W. Bush, including our current historical election for President currently in play. Thank you Authors Den for allowing me this opportunity, you are doing a great job...Ten Stars from me.
To Jill Carpenter on AuthorsDen:
Thank you so much for updating us on MySpace. I have been told by several of my friends to write on MySpace because I would get many more readers to my website. I however have been staying away from it because of the many things you have written about in your article. I hope to read more from you. You are on my listing for the Joan of Arc award which I started over two years ago. You go girl...
I have placed all my energy into AuthorsDen...I hope they do not let us down. To date I love the site and have increased my readership to over 2000 people in just two months. I will continue to pass the word on.
Hope, Love and Peace for the Future
www.authorsden.com/christheabductedalien
MySpace - The Good, Bad & Seriously Ugly
By Jill Christine Carpenter
Not necessarily in that order...
MySpace Introduction...
Established in 1998, the "MySpace" website is certainly not new, though in its early days it was some sort of file sharing and online storage service. That original MySpace changed hands in July of 2003, and the current "social networking" service was founded by Tom Anderson, and partially owned by Intermix Media, which was then purchased, in July of 2005, for $580 million by the [in]famous Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. MySpace was initially intended as an "over-18," adult networking site. Back then, under-aged members were booted off if found out. But apparently it became too much trouble to keep those pesky kids out of the website, so eventually the age restrictions were removed.
These days it is one of the top three most visited websites in the US, with over 106 million accounts registered, as of mid-September 2006. Recently, it also won first place on PC Magazine's list of the 25 All time worst websites. The PC Magazine writer begins the article with this description: "MySpace is now more popular than Elvis, "American Idol," and ice cream. But the Web's most visited destination is also its most poorly designed and counterproductive..."
MySpace
THE SERIOUSLY UGLY:
Does MySpace, one of the top three most visited web sites in the world, encourage and promote non-standard and visually atrocious web design?
Yes, sad to say, they certainly do.Since a large portion of MySpace pages are designed by individuals with little or no HTML experience, few pages meet the criteria for valid HTML laid down by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). This lack of web standards can cause seriously annoying accessibility problems when visiting many of the member's pages.
MySpace also allows members to customize the layout and colors of their home page with no restrictions what-so-ever (that is, as long as the all-important ads aren't covered up). Poorly constructed MySpace profiles can (and often do) crash web browsers due to malformed CSS coding.
There's also the problem of users placing a lot of high bandwidth objects (like videos, graphics, and Flash) in their profiles, often with no rhyme or reason, which can slow the loading of the page down to a grueling crawl. There are actually MySpace profile pages where multiple videos and sound files are automatically played at the same time when the member's page loads. It's good to either turn off your speakers, or wear ear-plugs with some of those profile pages. Part of this problem stems from allowing commenter's to also embed media files and over sized "sparkle" banners in their comments. Many MySpace members don't know how to manage their comments area or delete comments that cause problems.
To me, the sheer magnitude of visual ugliness-in-design that permeates MySpace is disheartening. Those unsightly, gaudy backgrounds, huge and garish "glitter" graphics, animated gifs, squeezed into one profile page can render it unreadable, at best, or make a visitor's eyes bleed from visual overload, at worst.
Scarily, one of the most unreadable, tasteless and garishly designed pages I've seen on MySpace was actually made by a person claiming to be a professional artist and web designer. Yikes!
PC Magazine describes the majority of the MySpace pages as looking like "...a teenager's bedroom after a tornado--a swirl of clashing backgrounds, boxes stacked inside other boxes, massive photos, and sonic disturbance. Try loading a few of those pages at once and watch what happens to your CPU..."
I fear for the future if this is a sample of the design tastes and skills of todays young web designers. Our world could someday end up looking like the main lobby of a Las Vegas casino circa 1965. Lots of wild wallpaper covering everything, blinking signs, scrolling animated banners, flaming spinning headlines, sparkles, and borderline porn sprinkled hither and yon, just for the heck of it. MySpace
THE BAD:
Another aspect that won MySpace the dubious distinction of being the number one worst web site on the Internet by PC Magazine is the serious security problems. Quoted from the article: "Watch out for spyware, too, since it turns out that MySpace has become a popular distribution vector for drive-by downloads and other exploits."
If the massive lack of design quality isn't enough, there are also some serious security risks connected to MySpace. It's good to learn how to be safe before you join or allow your kids to join. There are the obvious dangers to the teens who populate the website. Many of these young people have not been taught basic privacy safeguards. The less informed and less supervised teen members especially tend to post WAY too much personally identifiable information, even personal videos. Which means MySpace also draws perverts, stalkers, and identity thieves like ants to a picnic.
The solution would be to revert back to the 18 and older age restrictions. But Rupert M. isn't known for putting ethics and customer safety above monetary considerations. The teen demographic has tremendous spending power, and are the prime focus of many of the MySpace advertisers. Which means the kids are on MySpace to stay...at least till the next fad comes along, or they grow up and find jobs. The media/news corporation that owns MySpace has at least changed the privacy restrictions for underage members and made it a little safer for them (though it didn't happen until they were faced with threats of law suits). But parents need to be aware that, even if MySpace has recently implemented better ways to protect your child's profile privacy as members, there is absolutely nothing to protect them from the seedier side of the community. Your children are always just one click away from reading X-rated commentary, listening to music or viewing videos that contain foul language, or interacting with unsavory characters. Of course, that's no different from letting your kids on the Internet in general, so education and parental monitoring is really the best solution. Restricting or regulating the Internet in any way would be counter productive. The best defense is knowledge and good computer security habits.
Other dangers arise from serious security flaws that are being actively exploited on MySpace. Some problems have been fixed, but there are still ever growing problems with malware and trojans for visitors and members that are Windows users. The millions of uninformed members and visiters are like fish in the widespread nets of online scammers and spammers.
Spammers and Phishers are regularly launching attacks on users of MySpace, many posting links to infected ad banners in the comment areas of thousands of unwary MySpacers, and clicked on by vulnerable and unsuspecting visitors. In fact, MySpace is literally a "hotbed" for spyware spread by 3rd-party ad affiliates, and infection rates are continuing to rise. It is a good idea to make sure you understand basic computer security habits. Make sure your computer system, and your child's system is patched, and use an alternative browser instead of IE...that will make a big difference. Then set your browser's security options to only accept cookies from the original site, and never from 3rd party advertiser sites.
And, speaking of ads, the ad banners on MySpace can be dangerous. There have been a few recent incidents of banner advertisements that exploited Windows security flaws, infecting more than a million users with trojans and spyware when merely browsing the sites with unpatched versions of Windows using Internet Explorer (so, remember to patch your Windows, folks!). Using alternative browsers like Firefox (with the "Adblock" plugin), or Opera, instead of Internet Explorer, is a good workaround that can save you from the malware that some of those ad banners try to install. In fact, by using alternative, standards compliant browsers you likely won't see those evil ad banners at all.
For folks that use Mac computers, or Linux based operating systems, these types of security exploits won't be an issue. However, phishing attacks can happen to anyone that fills in personal information on a faked web form, no matter what type of operating system or browser they use. Just don't follow links from comment areas, or that show up in emails. Then there are identity thieves, who can easily find photos and enough personal information about someone on MySpace to steal their identities. It's like the Mother Lode to thieves and hustlers. So, it's never good for anyone to post their street addresses, birth dates, or even pictures of their homes or local neighborhood with too much identifying details in them. It's even more important to teach kids not to post their high school name, or give details of where they are going to be after school. If parents routinely teach their kids not to speak to strangers in their everyday world, then why on Earth don't they also teach them not to give away personal details on the World Wide Web, where God only knows what sorts of creepy characters can view it? Boggles the mind, doesn't it? Young people should also understand that what they write and post on their MySpace site today, may be viewed and read by future prospective employers, after applying for a job. All the employer needs to do is a simple Google search for the applicant's name. MySpace
THE GOOD:
So, now that I've trashed MySpace in general, it only seems fair to mention some positive things.
I have a MySpace account. I also have friends and family with pages, and it's always fun to visit them. The young members of my family have been taught good basic privacy and security habits, and happily keep their parents aware of their MySpace activities. All of us adults keep a close eye on them to make sure all is well.
MySpace can be a great place for writers, artists and photographers to promote their talents, make valuable new contacts, and put the massive networking capabilities of MySpace to good use. There are some pretty nice sites available for viewing on MySpace. For instance, AuthorsDen's own Ed Kostro has one of the nicest MySpace pages that I've seen so far. In fact, I'd give Ed's MySpace page a big thumbs up for classiness and quality content. :o)
Long lost friends can even be found on MySpace, so that's fun. With a membership of over 100 million people, there's bound to be someone you know that has a MySpace page. The challenge is in the search. Just be aware that the search tool on MySpace will give back a lot of advertiser links before the member links are listed, so searching for a particular person can be tedious. But, because ads are the revenue that supports the free service, it's a necessary annoyance.
One of the most successful things that MySpace provides (at least, in my humble opinion), is the opportunity for independent musicians to promote their music and cultivate a loyal fan base on their own, without having to sell their creative souls to the current Recording Industry. I have several musician friends with MySpace pages, and they've done very well with them.
If by now you've surmised that, over all, I'm very wary of MySpace, you'd be right. Mostly it's because I am a strong advocate of people practicing good Internet security habits. MySpace has done great damage, in my opinion, as far as encouraging dangerous activities and not monitoring their 3rd-party advertising partners well enough to stop the malware, SPAM, and phishing attacks. I also believe in diligently following established standards in web design. MySpace is the train wreck of the Internet when it comes to design, web standards, and usability. I will continue to visit and support my friends and family with MySpace pages, but I cannot, in good conscience, encourage anyone to join, or to surf there without first making them aware of the dangers. To me, the value of MySpace is greatly diminished by the negative aspects. It's like hiking in a jungle wilderness. If you feel you just HAVE to go there, prepare well and educate yourself before you go. Learn good safety habits, and don't let your guard down. And always remember, friends don't let friends surf the Internet (especially MySpace) using Internet Explorer. Here are some better browser choices:
Firefox (with Adblock plugin), Opera, Mozilla Suite , Flock
