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Myspace

James Ruiz10-26-09Information Technology

James Ruiz

Myspace is a social networking website founded in 2003. It is available in fifthteendifferent languages. MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the UnitedStates in June 2006. News Corporation owns Myspace. On July 20, 2005, News Corp. boughtIntermix Media Inc., which held Mypsace .com $580 million US Dollars. The headquarters arelocated in Beverly Hills, California, USA. The 100 millionth account was created on August 9,2006,in the Netherlands. MySpace employs 1,000 employees. In June 2009 Myspace layed off more than 30 percent of its workforce.In 2002 a website called Friendster was launched. Some Euniverse employees wanted tomake a website that mimicked Frienster but had better and more popular features. In 2003 thefirst version of Myspace was ready to be launch. The first Myspace users were Euniverseemployees. The company tried to hold contest to see who could get the most user sign ups. Rightafter launching the site, a team member named Chris DeWolfe suggested that they start charginga fee for the basic MySpace service. Brad Greenspan did the like the idea and believed it shouldstay free and open to the community. Some employees of MySpace were later able to purchaseequity in the property before MySpace, and its parent company universe was bought in July 2005for US$580 million by Rupert Mardoch’s News Corporation. In January 2006, Fox announced plans to launch a UK version of MySpace which they have done since then. They also released aversion in China And many other countries .To register for a myspace account people have to be at least thirteen. Profiles with ages set from13 to 15 years are created automatically private. Users whose ages are set at 16 or over can choseto set their profile to public viewing or private. In July 2007, the company found and deleted29,000 profiles belonging to registered sex offenders. MySpace has been the focus of a number of news reports stating that teenagers have found ways around the restrictions set by MySpace.

James Ruiz

Beginning in late June 2006, MySpace users whose ages are set over 18 could not be able to addusers whose ages are set from 13 to 15 years as friends unless they already know the user's fullname or email address. In June 2006, 16-year-old American girl named Katherine Lester flew tothe Middle East. She had tricked her parents into getting her a passport in order to be with a 20-year-old man she met through MySpace. U.S. officials in Jordan told the girl to turn around andgo home. Also In October 2006, a 13-year-old girl named Megan Meier committed suicide after being the victim of a cyber bully. The Bullying was being instigated by the mother of a friendwho had posed as a 16-year old named "Josh Evans”. In December 2006, MySpace announcedthat it would try new measures to protect from children from Sex Offenders. In February 2007, aU.S Judge in Texas dismissed a case when a family sued MySpace for fraud, andmisrepresentation .A girl in the family had been Sexually assaulted by a man she met onMySpace because she had said her age as 18 when she was only 13. In October 2007, a study published in the Journal of Adolescence. The study concluded that most Teens use MySpaceresponsibly. It said, “When considered in its proper context, these results indicate that the problem of personal information disclosure on MySpace may not be as widespread as manyassume, and that the overwhelming majority of adolescents are responsibly using the website".During the 2007 and 2008 myspace began to redesign many of its features. One of the firstfeatures to be redesigned was its user homepage. It was designed with features such as ,applications,status updates, and subscriptions. They were added in order to compete withFacebook. In 2008, the MySpace homepage was redesigned. Also, MySpace Music wasrecreated in fall of 2008. A popular feature of myspace is the ability to embed you tube videos totheir myspace profiles.Youtube first appeared on the web in 2005, and it quickly gained popularity on MySpace. Since then, YouTube has become one of the fastest-growing websites onthe Internet.MySpace has many features. Some contents of it are moods, status, blurbs, blogs, multimedia, acustomizable profile, videos, mail, comments, pictures/picture comments, friends, and music.