The MySpace ad model

[illusionofjoy]

I had always suspected as much, but freelance writer Trent Lapinski has put it quite eloquently in an article, the title of which drives the point straight home: MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0. An excerpt:

On July 11th, 2006, Hitwise reported that MySpace had "surpassed Yahoo! Mail as the most visited domain on the Internet for US Internet users." Clearly, MySpace has become almost ubiquitous--everyone and their mom have a profile up, from the fourteen-year old girl next door to Madonna. Tom Anderson himself--one of the site's founders and every MySpace user's number one "friend"--has over 109 million pals with profiles, and that's just today; by next week that number could easily have increased by millions. What's interesting is that most users don't know that Tom Anderson is more of a PR scheme than anything else--the mascot designed to give a friendlier feel to a site created by a marketing company known for viral entertainment websites, pop-up advertising, spam, spyware, and adware.

Most users believe that MySpace started as some kind of fluke--a happy accident that began in Anderson's bedroom or garage--and many still don't wonder, know, or care about the site's real business history and model. Heralded as a haven of DIY self-expression, MySpace was actually created by executives whose backgrounds are anchored in spam and mass marketing, and who are tied to investment scandals. With his almost alternateen good looks, Tom Anderson has served as an exceptionally convincing distraction. The PR campaign is one of MySpace's two strokes of genius, brilliant, but not groundbreaking.

The real genius of MySpace lies in it's re-imagining and repackaging of spam. While most internet users expend time and energy attempting to keep it out, MySpace is spam that they actually invite in.

It is true. As an aside, I am beginning to suspect that the increase in spam to my illusionofjoy.net email account is directly linked to my using it to register Illusion of Joy on the site. However, in the realm of the concrete, here's what I notice logging into MySpace:

1. The majority of my friend requests come from bands looking to be heard (and who are likely adding people at random) or companies who wish to promote bands at this point. When the friends list for Illusion of Joy was in the hundreds, this didn't seem to happen. Now that the page has thousands of linked "friends," this happens constantly. I can't substantiate whether or not this is directly related to the number of friends one has, but I find it interesting regardless.
2. Conversely, event invitations are constant, but rarely apply to anything happening in Pittsburgh. Am I really going to go to a show in California? Not likely with my current budget, but whoever sent the invite has their name beamed into my eyeballs an extra tick for doing so.
3. The coding for the site is buggy as all hell and allowing users to embed whatever markup crap they want does not help the issue. However, I am forced to wonder if these "bugs" aren't part of the core design. No matter how much a page on MySpace fucks up my browser (including freezing and, less often, crashing), the banner ad at the top of the page will always load.
4. A quick look at my cookies folder reveals that MySpace has placed no less than ten files on my hard drive. Why?

As I've said previously, I wouldn't even have a profile if it weren't for the traffic it generated. However, I am beginning to wonder if the visits – and those whom are visiting – are ever worth it. If a DJ from a college radio station sends me a friend request, that's great, but as I previously mentioned, the majority of my friend requests at this point are from other bands. Sadly enough, most of these aren't even other "Goth" bands. Would someone kindly explain to me why, for example, a crew of four emo bois who already have a friends list numbering in the five-digit range would want to associate with the likes of me? I'm flattered, I suppose, but someone who allegedly has over 10,000 fans won't be touring with the likes of my obscure arse anytime soon and even so, the disparate styles would likely alienate audiences (despite the overuse of eyeliner by both camps).

I am well-aware that there are several software programs in existence which will log into one's MySpace profile and generate friend requests for said user. I'm willing to bet that there are a whole lot of people/companies/bands who use such tools to attract attention to themselves. While I've never sought out such software (until five minutes ago, when I did a Google search out of curiosity), I imagine that some programs are more advanced than others. One incarnation may just add indiscriminately, like a WebCrawler following links to index pages, while others could possible be set up to seek out keywords.

When it comes to networking (or spamming), I operate the Illusion of Joy profile without the aid of software. If I get a friend request, I'll actually take a look at the page to see if there's anything objectionable before I approve the request. The vast majority of people who try to add Illusion of Joy will get approved. Once the page has been approved, I'll leave a little note, "Thanks for the add and your interest in Illusion of Joy," to communicate that I actually did visit the page and, until it falls off the comments page, to encourage others to take a look at my music profile instead.

When I set forth to add someone, I usually do so because I think that they would actually be interested in my music or because they are someone I hold in high regard (i.e.: I have no idea if Mr. Lif would dig my albums, but I believe that I, Phantom is one of the greatest Hip Hop records ever recorded). I try not to spam people with add requests, but I can't remember every single person who I've tried to add, in doing this manually.

Still, I am really beginning to find the MySpace model distasteful. It's a perfect symbolic example of consumerism in action: "friends" are currency and it necessary to always get more, if one is to be viewed as successful. Site traffic or not (visits to Illusion of Joy at MySpace rarely translate into visits to illusionofjoy.net, by the way), I may eventually find MySpace so distasteful that I abandon it altogether. I already have the contact info for those I need it from – why stick around and be part of the spam revolution? I suppose, that it is better to be part of it, than to be buried by it...but I do wonder what the difference is, if that is the case.

Comments

[absurdkarma.livejournal.com]

Awesome article. Thanks for posting it. :)