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MySpace is the Only Real Space Left Myspace.com, an online networking site that was launched in mid 2003 is now receiving more hits per day than cyberspace giants Google and AOL. In fact, MySpace is the fourth most visited site after Yahoo, MSN and Ebay. When Tom Anderson and Chris Dewolfe created Myspace, their intention was to create a network where people could keep in touch with friends, meet new people and give musicians and artist the space to network their product. The outcome grown from the original intentions, and has the social phenomenon of our times. Most people might look at Myspace as a past time where you look up old friends and try to pick up hot chicks, or guys, but it is much more that. In literal terms, it is the perfect example of an online community. And why not a cyber-relationships? Everything else is going online and new innovative sites are being created to cater to our everyday living, from shopping to dating. A person can even get a college diploma without the need of school now; they can do it online. Since there is an online culture developing that includes even the most subtle of things in our everyday American lives, then it shouldn't be a surprise that even a social life, full of different sub-cultures, can also work online. The net makes everything much easier to do, (one of its most compelling features for people selling products online) and having an online social life works the same way. Why go to the club to meet chicks when you can do it right out of your bedroom? There are roughly 130,000 people joining Myspace everyday with over 40,000,000 users worldwide. At this rate, this means that you don't ever have to leave your house again to meet someone. If you think about it, the top four sites on the net all cater to our basic needs. Yahoo offers basic information like weather, maps, what movies are playing etc., MSN offers news, Ebay offers shopping for everyday needs and Myspace introduces a social life online. When on Myspace, the user is given their own personal page in which they write a profile, add files such as pictures and music, and are given a personal blog. Having an online identity may have seemed like a silly idea 10 years ago, but now it seems to be the best way to tell the world who you are. Online identities such as the one's on Myspace make perfect sense, hence the word Ômyspace', because this generation needs just that, the space to say who they are. For older people skin color or perhaps a flag on top of their car was enough to identify them, but this new generation is so complex that a national flag is no longer enough to identify them, this generation needs the space to break down all the complexities of their identity, through digital media and through blogging they have been able to do just that. Myspace gives people the space to tell the world what it is that they want to say about themselves. In the real world, it's not like people make up rehearsed lines of things to say about themselves to everyone they meet, but Myspace allows people to do that. It allows people to say, Ôthis is who I am,' and no other space truly allows people to do that, not in school, not in church, not at home, nor with our friends. Five years ago, online profiles were perceived as for desperate people looking for friends or for a relationship. The problem was that many times people that networked online were so scattered all over the planet, so you could be a single male from San Jose looking for a date online but it was very unlikely that you could meet someone from San Jose in a chat room and if you did, it would have been even more unlikely that this person would have the same interests as you. Myspace makes things a little different considering that there are roughly around 5,000,000 users in the Bay Area alone. Even partying and club promoting, usually thought as done by hand to hand exchanges or Òstreet teamsÓ, are now being done through online networks like MySpace, it makes it cheaper than printing flyers. Our society is slowly shifting into an era where we no longer need to leave the house to do business or to even interact with other people. Soon enough, we will no longer need stores because all our shopping will be done online, going to the library would be unnecessary because you could get whatever information you want from the internet and soon enough, finding your future wife online will be the thing to do. Critics say that the web is disconnecting us, and for the most part I will agree since no one can deny that the web is physically disconnecting us, but at the same time, people who normally wouldn't be connected to society now have a way to try to get into the larger conversation through computers and through the internet.
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