Myspace versus email?

Social Networking Mania or Guilty Pleasures?

Are you on myspace? Friendster? Facebook? Linked-In? Hi-5? Or have you been fortunate to escape the clutches of the “in-thing(s)” these days. I couldn’t tell you which of these are pure social networking tools and which are guilty pleasures masquerading as social networking tools. But I do know some of these can look a lot like an online dating service gone bad rather than a network to connect you to people within your vocational or social realm.

Okay, I confess, I have a myspace account. And like everybody else on it, I too can claim I have a legit reason to indulge myself regardless of all the spam and other madness that goes on there. Because really, its madness.

I don’t have a thorough nor thesis-worthy understanding of social networking as a phenomena, but I might hardly need that to know that a lot of these online facilitators are just plain bizaare in terms of functionality. For instance, for a little while there I was bombarded with emails about “are you on facebook?” When I finally joined all I earned for my leap of faith were emails that said “so I sent you a message on facebook, did u get it?” I like email somewhat so this is tragic. Really it is.

Hence, I dedicate this blog entry to all inquiring minds, especially those that are (or not?) in this matrix but wish they had taken the red pill so they would at least know what the fuss is all about. From a limited and “reluctant insiders” perspective, I will divulge secrets of the matrix (in this case myspace) Is it worth it? Does it work? What’s it good for? Is it the best out there? And of course how many agent smiths (aka spam) are there?

“Is it worth it?” Well, I’m on myspace as an artist so I bear the cross, suffer the hacking, spamming, and endless advertisements sprawling all over the site. I also run a myspace site for PTP’s Techcamp to connect with organizers and organizing groups that are on it as well. Unfortunately 10 out of every dozen friend requests I get for Tech Camp are from “lonely” and “friendly” cyber-created Eves looking for Adams, with little interest in learning basic computer skills useful for organizing. It could be funny or annoying. The latter is more true. But then again I see a reasonably successful US Social Forum mobilization campaign on myspace and that seems to attract the “right” audience.

Is it the best out there? Technically that should be an emphatic no considering all its telemarketer-ish tendencies; i.e. loads of unsolicited and unwanted info. But as is the case with many other technologies, the most popular ones aren’t necessarily the most useful or manageable info. There are over a100 million (and counting) members on myspace. Whew. That’s hard to compete with. The reach and possibilities of these figures are really enticing and might be a reason a lot of artists gravitate to the myspace medium.

There is much more to be said, but I have to pull out a “to-be-continued” right here and ponder how myspace and facebook ate my emails and churned them into emails about messages online.