Introduction

MySpace is a social networking website based in West Hollywood, California offering an interactive, user-submitted network of blogs, profiles, groups, photos, MP3s, videos, and an internal e-mail system. According to Alexa Internet, as of August 2006, it is the world's fourth most popular English-language website and the sixth most popular in any language. It is the most popular website in the United States, accounting for 4.5% of all website visits (note it is possible that other sites have a greater number of unique visitors). MySpace has gradually gained more popularity than similar websites such as Facebook, Bebo, Friendster, Xanga, MyYearbook, FriendsReunited.co.uk, Classmates.com and LiveJournal to achieve 80 percent of visits to online social networking websites. It has become an increasingly influential part of contemporary pop culture, especially in the Anglosphere. MySpace has 300 employees, is owned by Newscorp, and does not disclose revenues or profits. MySpace currently reports just over 100 million members, with the 100,000,000th member signing up on August 9, 2006.

The creators of MySpace have hosted many parties in Hollywood, San Diego, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, New York City, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Hawaii, and McAllen, Texas to support the site. The headquarters is in Los Angeles, but the parent company is headquartered in New York City.

MySpace is also home to various independent musicians, independent filmmakers, and up and coming comedians who upload songs, short films, and other work directly onto their profile. These songs and films can also be embedded in other profiles, an interconnectedness which adds to MySpace's appeal for musicians, filmmakers and comedians alike. Because of the high popularity, mainstream musicians filmmakers, and comedians alike have continued this trend as well

Contents of a MySpace profile

Each profile contains two standard "blurbs": "About Me" and "Who I'd Like to Meet" sections. Profiles also can contain sections about standard interests. Usually it's found under the "General" section of one's profile. A profile also contains under the "General" section, areas for specific personal details, such as Marital Status, Physical Appearance, and Income. However, these features have the ability of not being displayed on the page by simply not filling them in or covering them up with certain codes. 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. MySpace has also added the option to upload videos that are played via a standalone Flash player.

Also displayed is a count of a user's friends, as well as a "Top Friends" area. Users can choose a certain number of friends to be displayed on their profile in the "Top Friends" area. The "Top Friends" used to be restricted to eight friends. People bypassed this limitation by using third-party tools to emulate ”Top X” friends. Currently, MySpace allows up to 24 friends to be displayed in the "Top Friends" area.

Below the "Top Friends" area (by default) is the "comments" section, wherein the user's friends may leave comments for all viewers to read. Although comments are publicly accessible, many users leave personal comments regardless, allowing any reader to know their business. MySpace users have the option to delete any comment and/or require all comments to be approved before posting.