The answer to what is MySpace appears to be "another in a long string of social networking websites that have become the Internet phenomenon of the early 21st century." The site has become a cyber space gathering place that took over the singles bar and club scene years ago as the place to meet other singles. This particular website along with Facebook and YouTube have become the preferred spot for meeting, talking, and dating for the Gen Y crowd, those born after 1977. In terms of outright numbers, MySpace has become the largest of the networks and has a large lead in total pages views and time spent on the site, almost 2 to 1 in ratio compared with Facebook. However, Facebook use appears to be growing globally at a faster rate than MySpace and threatens to become numero uno by 2010.
As in most social networking websites, this website appears to be providing an opportunity, mostly for members of Gen Y, to communicate with each another. The answer to what is MySpace is a large gathering place for people to get to know one another and to find new friends with similar likes and tastes. The commonality of all social networking websites is the ability for a person to craft a profile of himself that shares as much about that person as comfort allows. Profiles often contain as much information about a person as would a half an hour conversation over a cup of coffee. They are filled with details such as favorite music, movies, television shows and celebrities, as well as likes and dislikes, turnoffs, and many other types of information.
Opening up a profile on this website, a person can only say that one of the answers to what is MySpace might be a gigantic billboard filled with a conglomeration of pictures both moving and still, favorite videos, all kinds of personal details, graphics that the profile owner can put together and many other opportunities to express oneself. It appears to be such an incredibly large and expansive information opportunity that even politicians are getting involved with profiles. Washington congressmen and senators are inviting the public to visit them on MySpace to learn more about the proceedings in the next session of Congress. With over sixty five million page views a month and at least twenty six minutes per visit spent on MySpace, the answer to what is MySpace seems to be an advertiser's dream. Jesus said, "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." (Matthew 5:6) God honors those persons who have a hunger-like desire for Him. Since the word blessed here also translates happy, hungering after God is a prescription for genuine happiness.
One of the things that stand out on all of the social networking sites are the often poor quality pictures of the person featured on the profile. They often appear to have been taken at a state fair picture booth or with almost no light in the room. A person would think if an individual wanted to meet other people for dating or a long term relationship, more care might be taken in the "Hello world here I am" picture, which can be quite large in the MySpace profile. Many people also want to wax esoteric on their profile talking about the consummation of the sun and the stars coming together in some universal harmonious dance of the planets or some other gobbledygook, but people really want to just know who people are as humans, and not as wannabe space aliens. Because of all this diversity, the answer to what is MySpace can be a gigantic cyberspace parking lot where almost every walk of life and way of thinking can be represented.
Many people wonder what the difference is between MySpace and Facebook and the answer might be similar to the difference between riding the bus and driving it. There isn't a whole lot of control issues with riding the bus other than getting on board and paying a fare if there one. Driving the thing can be a whole other issue. Facebook is a very organized, very precise social networking website and one has little control over what goes on to the profile page. It appears to be all pretty well mapped out and one need only fill in the blanks to get up and running. The answer to what is MySpace could be a blank canvas on which to put anything a person desires within reason. From the background to many different designs for personal information and the freedom to add favorite videos and so many other options that on could be dizzy looking at all the information in one profile.
What is MySpace? It seems to be a place, like the many other social networking sites that offer people a real alternative to meat locker single bars and clubs. In a culture where time is speeding up because of technology and where the world has gone insanely cruel, the Internet, if used properly, offers a place of refuge to quietly and privately hunt for old friends and find new ones. And if, in the process love is struck, then all the better. The answer to what is MySpace just may be a place where life can start all over again with a new love, or where classmates from fifty years ago find one another or a place where interminably lonely nights can be passed meeting and laughing and talking on the Internet and that has to be a good thing.
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