I have a colleague who is convinced that I need a presence on MySpace. I do not have a personal page now, but I have seen my kids’ pages.
I frankly do not see it. I already have a web presence.
While it may be a good idea, I don’t see it yet.
Any Dopers doing this? With what measurable success rate ?
Cartooniverse
All I can say is when I’m looking for a business/professional on line, MySpace is not the first resouce that comes to mind. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a MySpace page at all…
Just one Doper’s unassailable opinion. 
I am working with some musicians with plans to impliment a web marketing strategy that we like. I was talking with my nephews who are both musicians (one works in multimedia) and they mentioned myspace. I mockingly said that myspace struck me as the garage sale of popular music. They explained that it is very important to the young - sense of community, friends etc and made much of the experience sound akin to membership of the SDMB, no tangible benefits but a useful resource.
Although the guys I am working with are not really targeting the youth market I have started looking at how myspace hangs together and it is interesting. Just go to myspace pick a random small band and start following the network trails.
I’m starting to think that it can’t do any harm and possibly may be useful.
The popularity of MySpace defies all logic.
They’re ugly, meaningless, popularity contests, that are promoted as social meeting places, but are instead just a cacophony of annoying shit.
And yet, they are the fastest growing places for personal, and unfortunately also business, webpages ever.
Save me from the madness.
GuanoLad and don’t ask are both right.
It depends what you do. If you’re an accountant or a plumber, you don’t need a myspace. If you’re a musician or an actor, you definitely do. Basically, if you’re in a field in which you use your personality to appeal to the type of people who are early adopters of new technology, you should have a myspace.
I have friends in bands and in filmmaking/television who have created artful Myspace pages and used them to advertise shows, sell products, and generally spread the word about their creative endeavors to great success.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
The popularity of MySpace defies all logic.
They’re ugly, meaningless, popularity contests, that are promoted as social meeting places, but are instead just a cacophony of annoying shit.
[/QUOTE]
Umm, no. Myspace and Facebook are awesome tools to keep touch with people you woulnd’t normally call on a weekly basis. I assume you don’t have an account? It’s not about a popularity contest (although I’ll give you the fact that alot of people’s pages are UGLY). I can post a bulletin to let my friends know what I’m doing for my birthday, or where we’re going out tonight, instead of calling up everybody to see what they’re doing, find out if they want to go, etc.
But to answer the OP, the only way I could see a Myspace page being used professionally is for music. Setting up a page for your band is a good way to get your music online for free, and share it with your friends. If the band is pretty good, they’ll show their friends, etc.
My initial reaction was that it’d be good for people who were trying to score a marketing job. But, on second thought, people in that position should have much better tools at their disposal.
Myspace is a great networking tool, but I’d consider it a strictly social thing, and not suitable for professional networking. There are exceptions, of course, as most radio stations, some restraunts, and even bars and clubs have their own pages. To me, that’s just free advertising, though.
There’s nothing Myspace has to offer an individual, professionally, unless they’re a musiciain, IMHO.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
The popularity of MySpace defies all logic.
They’re ugly, meaningless, popularity contests, that are promoted as social meeting places, but are instead just a cacophony of annoying shit.
And yet, they are the fastest growing places for personal, and unfortunately also business, webpages ever.
Save me from the madness.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with GuanoLad completely. I was on the web very early on and was fascinated to watch it grow. Innovation grew by leaps and bounds. Then, several years later, someone invented a web within the web called Myspace that was tackier and more pointless than the web itself was even .00001 milliseconds after it was invented. I didn’t even hear about it until it was going strong despite being on the real web every day and having an IT job.
I have checked out Myspace many times just for personal puzzlement. It is an enigma wrapped up in a newspaper full of riddles topped with imitation cheese. I think there has been some seismic generational shift because I am not that old and I just flat-out don’t get Myspace. I have has my own website for some time and I can do whatever I want with it. Why do people a crappy web within the web when the original one is much better?
[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
I have checked out Myspace many times just for personal puzzlement. It is an enigma wrapped up in a newspaper full of riddles topped with imitation cheese. I think there has been some seismic generational shift because I am not that old and I just flat-out don’t get Myspace. I have has my own website for some time and I can do whatever I want with it. Why do people a crappy web within the web when the original one is much better?
[/QUOTE]
It’s more efficient, for starters.
You have your own Web site. Cool. Now say you have 20 close friends, each with their own Web sites, each coded in their own way, with different information in different places within them.
Say I have 20 friends, each with a myspace site, with the same information in the same relative place on each.
Given the same amount of information to keep track of, who do you suppose will take less time to find out what all their friends are doing?
I agree they’re mostly ugly (see here for one that’s not), annoying, and that “real” websites allow more creativity and tastefulness, but creativeness and tastefulness aren’t what most of these people are after. It’s a free way to create an online home where people can leave messages, post photos and blog. shrug I don’t have one, I don’t need one, but I can see the novelty.
[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
Why do people a crappy web within the web when the original one is much better?
[/QUOTE]
Because most people aren’t smart enough to make their own webpage. You may ot consider the process technically difficult in the slightest, but others do.
My brother-in-law is a youth pastor and he says he has parents constantly thanking him for having one since it’s the best way for kids to learn about events at church.
We both know a simple web site would do the same goal, but the kids(for some reason) love myspace. It’s an anomaly, but true.
Interesting mix of responses. I have chosen not to make use of Myspace because- incredibly- in the time since I OP’d this thread I have for the first time taken a full time staff position and my little websites are going to be “flipped” and I will re-work them, sell the domain names to the company for whom I now work and maintain a larger and more robust presence than I had.
And, my site was doing a nice business but not a titanic business. Not killer business. Not fire sale business. Now? Perhaps. 
I will say this- it has always seemed to me that Internet interaction is exactly like summer camp. You want letters? You write letters. You get out of it what you put into it.
I adore the Dope but you know what? There is nothing fundamentally different about SDMB than Myspace. Human interaction by like-minded people. How can I say that? Easy: If you hate the Dope, you don’t stick around. If you hate Myspace, you don’t register and build a presence. People who are like-minded stick around and join the community.
I personally see zero wrong with that idea.
[QUOTE=Cartooniverse]
There is nothing fundamentally different about SDMB than Myspace.
[/QUOTE]
Except The Dope doesn’t play music as soon as you arrive, doesn’t take twenty minutes to display all its stupid ugly graphics, and is organised in a clear and readable fashion. And apart from that, they’re nothing like each other whatsoever. But yeah, sure, whatever.
Yeah? A hell of a lot of personal webpages play annoying music as soon as you arrive, take horrendous amounts of time to load, and say nothing useful or interesting.
Although I resisted it for a long time, my MySpace page (and lo, I am ashamed to use that phrase) is kinda useful. It doesn’t play music as soon as you arrive, there are no stupid graphics of any kind, and the information is laid out in a consistent manner between pages, so it is easy to find what you’re looking for. Everyone and their dog is on there, so I can chat up old high school friends or acquaintances that I may otherwise have immediately lost track of. I can get and send messages, post friend-network-wide bulletins to announce events and such, keep a blog, and so on. I do have a professional website, but it’s not networked the way that myspace pages are networked within their own system. It’s extremely easy to move between myspace accounts in a way that’s just not true with personal websites.
GuanoLad, you may not personally be interested in participating, and that’s just fine… but I don’t get the hostility. Some pages are annoying with graphics and music, but you know what? I just don’t visit those pages the same way I don’t visit annoying music- and graphic-laden pages on the wider web.
Totally agree with GuanoLad re MySpace’s general repulsiveness. That said, these days it’s practically a requirement for professional musicians to maintain a presence there, and it seems like that’s slowly expanding into other areas of business.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
The popularity of MySpace defies all logic.
They’re ugly, meaningless, popularity contests, that are promoted as social meeting places, but are instead just a cacophony of annoying shit.
[/QUOTE]
I feel like an old bastard, at 33, but I couldn’t agree more. EVERY, and I mean EVERY, not being hyperbolic, myspace page I have visited (yes, I have an account) is jarring to me. Each one plays a song straight away - I HATE that. Each has an ugly, ugly tiled background that makes my computer start making chugging sounds. The sentiments are so juvenile.
But, sigh, I must admit that when I was 16, Myspace would have been my WORLD. I can’t imagine how obsessed I would have been…
Joe
[QUOTE=NajaNivea]
Yeah? A hell of a lot of personal webpages play annoying music as soon as you arrive, take horrendous amounts of time to load, and say nothing useful or interesting.
[/QUOTE]
But the OP is asking about putting his company’s presence there, to drum up business. If the majority of MySpace pages are godawful ugly and annoying, which I avoid deliberately, then why would I think any differently about a legitimate company’s page there? End result, I don’t visit his page.
[QUOTE=NajaNivea]
GuanoLad, you may not personally be interested in participating, and that’s just fine… but I don’t get the hostility. Some pages are annoying with graphics and music, but you know what? I just don’t visit those pages the same way I don’t visit annoying music- and graphic-laden pages on the wider web. 
[/QUOTE]
The hostility comes from three places. One, I am a website designer, and MySpace offends my sensibilities. Two, I am a website visitor, and MySpace is a huge leap backwards in useability. And Three, I am a grumpy old bastard, and the illogical things these kids get up to piss me off no end.
In the days of Geocities I had to put up with crappy websites like this, and I was so happy when blogging software came along that was so attractive and readable and they’re so popular for socialising and commentary. But then MySpace appears out of nowhere, and we’re not only right back in Geocities territory, it is arguably worse even than that.
It’s shit, pure and simple.
Well, regardless of the folks who don’t like Myspace because it offends their sensibilities - and for what it is worth, I am one of them, but my opinion doesn’t matter either - it IS a very effective networking tool for folks in music and visual arts.
My cite is my drummer who is a full-time record producer in real life. He is constantly making connections with various musicians who want him to mix their work. And he finds artists who he thinks have promise that he connects with. His networking on Myspace has led to some deals and work.
And that’s fundamentally all that matters relative to the OP.
Peace.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
Except The Dope doesn’t play music as soon as you arrive, doesn’t take twenty minutes to display all its stupid ugly graphics, and is organised in a clear and readable fashion. And apart from that, they’re nothing like each other whatsoever. But yeah, sure, whatever.
[/QUOTE]
If you actually have a MySpace account and are logged in, you can disable the autoplay feature of the music and videos.
Further, I’d assume you wouldn’t just sit there going from page to page, checking out the latest 16 year old hotties (the worst offenders), but would rather spend time looking at the pages of your actual friends. Now, one would hope that those with whom you choose to interact will have pages that are more in tune with what you thing of as right and good in this world.
As to the OP, it depends entirely on what the business is. I have friends that are tattoo artists, photographers, musicians, and actors- they all have MySpace pages that are useful and appropriate. I shudder at the day that I may stumble upon a page. . . only to find out that it’s my accountant father. Some things just don’t work together.
I was getting pretty torqued off at some of the posts, but I have to admit, there are things that just drive me bonkers because they offend my particular sensibilities. Mine are different than GuanoLad’s, but I gotta give him/her the due.
I decided not to do it at all. It is more appropriate to keep the professional websites I’m running now. I can see the point of them, and yeah they do NOT need to have music playing nonstop. Some of the ones I’ve seen have none playing. My son’s does not and he’s a music fiend. He choses to have them be linked but not active when you open it up.