Posts Tagged ‘myspace’
While social networks are great at connecting people and bringing them together for various aspects, sometimes a nice site is what you’re looking for. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and such just don’t server your needs, and perhaps you’ve tried the Ning communities to no avail.
For those of you out there that are collectors of various things such as stamps, bottle caps, dolls, coins, or just about anything else, Colnect is for you. This social networks brings togethers collectors from around the world to buy, sell, trade, and share stories and locations with people. This niche specific network is amazingly popular, so if you’re a collector and missing that special, cornerstone piece to your collection, perhaps this network can help you complete your empire!
There is no doubt that the market is becoming overrun with social networks. While there is value in a great number of them, after awhile they all starte to look the same. With only slight variations it makes a person wonder why one would be different from the rest if they are all so similar. That being said, the grand-daddy of the social network medium, MySpace, might be on the endangered species list.
It’s no surprise that during an economic crunch that “re-structuring” is inevitable, but recently we’ve seen a large number of the U.S. staff released from the company, and now the wave appears to be hitting Europe. After reading an article on TechCruch it got me thinking if MySpace is even relevant anymore.
It’s become a marketing ground for new bands, comedians, and other entertainers. The playground to the 15 and below crowd, it fails to reach the depth that other social networks like Facebook have reached in recent years. Much like AOL was a pioneer and has slowly been phased out of importance, is the same happening to the social networking pioneer MySpace?
Do you still use MySpace? If so for what? Do you find it relevant in your life, why or why not? I’d love to gauge the readership of Crenk and find out if MySpace is even a blip on the radar in terms of connecting with people.
Have you ever spent a lot of time searching around the Internet to find the perfect social media button that can be added to your site? Well stop searching and head over to MySocialButtons. MySocialButtons does what it says on the can and offers free social networking icons and buttons to download. Buttons include TTwitter, Reddit, Digg, Facebook, Stumbleupon and come in various different colours, styles and sizes.
There has been lots of news recently about Twitter accounts being hacked from several stars, including Britney Spears. Today there is a new star who has been hacked and he hasnt just lost his Twitter account but also his Gmail and Myspace accounts.
The hackers were responsible for spreading an online rumour – seemingly from Kanye himself – that he was plotting a move into bisexual pr0n movies. “Please I beg you, give me a break!” West wrote on his blog, which appears to be the only arm of his online empire NOT to have been hacked.
Im spending a lot of time in the office recently and I’m one of those people who cant work without music playing really loud in the background. I’m sure its not just me who thinks better when music is playing loud, so I thought I would put together a quick list of the top 10 free music streaming service that are currently available. Some of these services can only be used in specific countries, but I’m sure this will change in 2009.
Pandora – Pandora is now just a USA based service. However, Pandora is a great service for those in the USA and im surprised if most people in the USA don’t already use it. Pandora is basically a music radio service which lets you listen to customised radio stations.
Last.fm – I have never really understood Last.fm myself, but they have a great service in which will let you stream music from certain artists. Some have full tracks for free to stream, but others have videos or some nothing at all.
Seeqpod – Seeqpod is basically Google for music. Seepqod is a search engine that allows users to find whatever music they want to listen too. Seeqpod can only find music that can easily be downloaded on the net, so it can be limited with some artists, plus sometimes the tracks might be corrupted and not completely work. However, it is great for making playlists.
Spotify – Spotify is a new music service that has launched out of Sweden. I have been using Spotify for several months now, even though it is in private beta testing. Though the music is streamed, it is played instantly and is partly supported by the famous P2P technology. Currently the service is only available in Finland, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden and UK. Spotify has to be the best music streaming service I have used in 2008.
Myspace Music – Myspace is of course the worlds largest social network and Myspace Music is just an add-on of this social network. With Myspace Music users can search for pretty much any artist in the world and stream the music they have on their profiles. Remember it is limited to only the music the artist wants you to hear.
Rhapsody – Rhapsody has a nice “listen FREE” search option at the top of its homepage, an excellent way to entice people to sign up for its premium service. Once you find the artist you are looking for then you can play any of the songs in their catalogue for free. However, then I realised streaming is only for the USA.
Imeem – Imeem is a mixture between music streaming service and social network. On Imeem to stream music all you need to do is to search for the artist you want to listen to and then the majority of the time they will already have an Imeem account.
Deezer - Deezer is a mixture between Seeqpod and Imeem. Deezer has some social networking aspects but mainly it is just a great music streaming service that is very easy to find the music you are looking for. All music on there is legal and free and artists actually get royalties from your streams.
Skreemr - Skreemr is very similar to Seepqod and it is just basically a search engine for music online. Skreemr is a free service that picks up free music from across the internet and allows you to play it easily. However, unlike Seeqpod they don’t allow users to make playlists.
Lala – Lala is one of the new music streaming services on the block. Lala provides free streaming to only USA users. There is a limit on how many times you can listen to a track for free, but you also have the option of purchasing that stream for $0.10 so then you have can unlimited plays. Additionally, if you want to take the tracks off the site then there is an option of $0.79 for the download.
In recent months the number of social networks has grown exponentially. At the beginning of this boom there were obvious leaders in the market, networks like MySpace and Facebook come to mind. In that time there have been a lot of networks looking for their place online, attracting niche groups from within the online community. Other networks were developed that had entirely different purposes, but still remained under the guise of a social media tool such as Twitter, Yelp, and Digg to name a few.
Everyone can see that at some point all this development will culminate a scenario where thousands of networks will be fighting for the dominant number of users, the smaller networks either dying out or being bought out. We saw this in a recent purchase of Pownce by SixApart, whose plans are to disable the service, but acquire the users via another service that will undoubtedly be under the sole development of SixApart. Users are given the option to transfer their data, but ultimately there is an example of services being absorbed by larger offerings due to the over abundance and saturation of the market.
Facebook Connect is now becoming the new battleground for social networks. The face of the war for users is changing, and MySpace and Facebook are battling for dominance. Luckily for users, we will ultimately benefit, and the winner is yet to be determined.
Facebook, In It to Win It
Facebook Connect was announced mid-summer with an expected launch of 24 partners on board. The concept was to create a portal by which users of Facebook could sign on and using their profiles, access data on other social networks, all without leaving the Facebook platform. By allowing users to port their profile data to third-party Web sites, several opportunities become available to the user.
- You can leverage your identity across the web in trust environments for ease of use
- Take your friends across various networks ensuring trusted social context anywhere you go
- The piece of mind knowing that the privacy settings you set on Facebook will go with you as you cross the boundaries into other networks
- Actions you make on partner sites will be shared with your friends on Facebook, keeping them in the know about what you like, what you’re doing, and what you find interesting
The idea of the project is to create a deeper, enriching experience using Facebook as the anchor for all your social media experiences.
What’s In It For Partner Sites?
The curious thing anyone would ask is why the networks would come together in such a way that their services rely on large sites like Facebook? For starters, the instinct to survive as to be at the top of the list. Networks are competing for users, all of them hoping to break out and be the leader in their respective niche. Secondly, by partnering you ensure that the millions of users that Facebook states they have will eventually bleed over onto the partnering network.
For example, by utilizing Facebook Connect a user and sign in and perhaps read about Digg. Wanting to be a part of the Digg community the user only has to select the partner and the profile data will port over to the Digg profile creation page instantly making it easier for the user to begin their Digg experience. The benefit is obvious ease of use, but also new users, and the power of link backs which gives the social sites their traction. By sharing contact lists, you increase the power of the network and Facebook benefits by being the hub for all of your social media access.
Currently MySpace is also fighting is also in the fight for your time, your identity and your data on the social networks, but Facebook has come out of the gate with very powerful alliances.
I’m curious to see the outcome of this online competition from two of the largest social community sites on the net today.
Microsoft have now made the decision to turn the Live.com site into a social network that will compete directly with Facebook and Myspace.
Microsoft Windows Live senior director Ryan Gavin has outlined why he is excited about the raft of social networking improvement in the new software, admitting that this would have been a more appropriate time to launch the ‘Live’ brand.
Talking to TechRadar, Gavin expressed his belief that Windows Live was a step in the right direction in giving people a platform to bring all of their social interactions together on the web.
“When I think about what’s happening online today it still is really two things – what’s happening in my world and what’s happening in the world and fundamentally those two activities make up 65 per cent of online usage.
“What’s happening in my world is where Windows Live is – in the communications and sharing section that makes up 33 per cent of the time online and includes email, instant messaging and social networking. Social networking has come on very strong as the third leg of that stool.
Legacy
Hotmail and what was formely MSN instant messenger make up the cornerstone of Windows Live’s audience, but adding in the social networking aspect is of paramount importance to Gavin.
“Live has its base in mail and messaging with 460 million active users and 17 per cent of online time specifically in the UK which is quite staggering when you think about it.
“The lines between instant messaging, email and social networking are really being taken down; we’re thinking about these things less as discrete categories and more as integrated thing.
“When you look at how things have evolved it’s been an explosion in rich ways to communicate in the past few years and it’s also set up a new set of challenges.
“So there’s been an explosion of ways to communicate but there’s only one consumer at the centre of this with one list of friends to manage or one list of contacts and they are saying ‘help me manage that list.
Communications
“There are ways that I like to communicate and ways that I like to be communicated to. Tons of ways to get hold of someone but I don’t want to log into five accounts to find out if someone is trying to get hold of me and it’s the same with stuff like documents, data and pictures. This gets spread over several devices but you should be able to access it easily
“Finally there are applications and a truth in that which says when you think about consumer service no one company is going to build the end to end consumer value properly so you’d better have platform so that third parties can make that first party platform better.
“And because it’s my data when I leave I’d better be able to take it with me.”
Gavin believes that this update indicates a sea change for the software and web applications, admitting that the past confusion over the move away from brands like MSN and hotmail to the ‘Live’ name make a lot more sense with this raft of changes.
“In some ways this would have been the best time to launch the Live brand,” he adds.
By Patrick Goss
Since the launch of Myspace Music I still havent been able to understand where they are heading with this company!
Myspace prior to Myspace Music had pretty much every band in the world signed up to the service, that doesn’t mean they use the service frequently. Then when the service launched the changes were so minimal, but now Myspace had to offer the four major labels and some minor distributors a revenue share and possibly even equity. What did Myspace get in return for this revenue share and even equity deal? Not much at all!
The way Myspace and their music section is setup has not really changed. Myspace still provides exclusives on albums, myspace tours, and featured videos. Recently Youtube started a test with adding affiliate links to video pages, but this seems to be the obvious revenue stream Myspace Music is missing out on. With all the music that is on Myspace Music I can see them launching an Amazon Mp3 competitor very soon, and if they don’t they are out of their minds. In the meantime I would be adding affiliate links to each myspace profile, this could be added in a box under message area in the left column of every profile.
Myspace Music has been trying to find a new CEO for at least six months, and the job keeps on getting turned down, why? No one actually wants to be Myspace Music CEO because there is really no direction at the moment and for them to make changes they have to go through many levels of hierarchy.
Myspace Music has a great opportunity to build either a web app product or even a music product offering, but it will need to find the right person to run the show! Currently, Myspace has offered a revenue share to all the major labels and have nothing in return, and this has to change sooner rather than later, or they might be in a little trouble when it comes to hitting Murdoch’s revenue targets.
Social Networks have been the method of communication for adults, adolescents, and businesses the world over. Kids have been curious about the many social sites that exist, but none are targeted for the under 12 year old market. Today parents are more worried about who their children talk to since it’s impossible to really know who is on the other end of the conversation. While understandable, there was no real forum for younger children to make their mark on the net until KidZui debuted.
What started as a pay service quickly changed to a free model, and since then they have had a lot of success attracting the 3-12 year old demographic. Recently KidZui has changed a lot of the functionality of their site, and have introduced some new tools to make the site fun for parents working with their kids. Parents are encouraged to participate on the site with their kids so that everyone is in the know as to what the child is looking at and sharing online.
KidZui offers limited profiles that offer superficial details about the user, the site offers no real two way communication to prevent those looking to lure children, and tabs where users can share the sites they’ve visited, approved videos, and even a section for homework help. Status can be set by the user, but instead of typing there is a menu of premade options that can be chosen from. Again, this introduction is to get the child used to the idea of larger social networks, but still maintain a safe environment for kids to enjoy their time online.
If you’ve got kids, I recommend you check out KidZui and get your kids prepared for the future of communication!
When
Flock was launched last fall, it was the browser geared towards the social network savvy surfer. It was a new way to integrate all the most popular social sites and keep them at your finger tips while doing your standard day to day browsing online. No longer were you forced to open tab after tab, window after window for each network you wanted to connect with. Now, with some minor prep time by inputting accounts and passwords, Flock will keep everything on file and load all of your chosen networks as soon as you start your browser.
Flock has just released the latest version of its broswer software, and already it’s looking like the browser to beat. When Google release Chrome, it was a mad dash by early adopters to test out this mysterious new entry into the browser wars. The excitement lost steam pretty quickly as users were left wondering exactly what the purpose of Chrome was because the bells and whistles were just not there. The browser that was meant to be used not seen seemed to be the mantra. Flock flies directly in the face of such philosophy by making sure every aspect of the user interface is useful and interactive.
The new release integrates Media RSS which can now keep the most watch media on the front page of your start window for immediate viewing; pics, movies, podcasts, all accessible with a click of a button. New to the social network offerings is
MySpace, which has finally been brought into the fold, allowing users to chat with their friends directly from the sidebar without having to visit the actual site.
Since it’s founding 3 years ago, and with the first release this past fall, Flock has attracted 6 million downloads. A true testament in its efforts to get attention from users. Having been built on Firefox’s code, similarities are welcoming with a taste and flavor all its own.
Yesterday friend and fellow blogger Daniel Scocco posted the 16th part in a series about generating website traffic, Promoting your content on social networking sites. Outside of Twitter, Daniel admits he doesn’t do much in the form of utilizing social networking or media sites to drive traffic to his site, but I have. Leaving a comment in the article about my experience with MySpace specifically spawned a conversation of sorts in the comments of the article.
There is some validity to using MySpace as a way to generate traffic to your site, but as I explained in the comments of Daniel’s site, it’s very short lived, but a nice spike when it happens. The drawback however is time, it simply takes a lot of time to make blog posts on MySpace linking back to your own blog’s article, same goes for bulletins. Being the wonderful thing that is the Internet, I set out to find a way to have WordPress automate this for me, and that is what this review is about.
A very short and quick search on Google led me to the MySpace Crossposter v2.0a plugin for WordPress. It is almost totally what I was looking for. As described on their site,
The WordPress to MySpace Auto Crossposter is a WordPress plugin that publishes all of your WordPress blog entries to your MySpace blog at the time of publication. This allows you to publish as usual on your WordPress blog, but to also capture and retain your MySpace audience without any extra effort.
Each time that a new WordPress post goes live it will automatically be sent to MySpace for publication.
Users of the plugin have the option of publishing a notification or a whole story to MySpace.
Perfect! The download is just like any other plugin, in a zip file. Extract it and FTP it into the \plugins directory of your web server. Login to the admin panel of WordPress, activate the plugin and then go to Settings > MySpace Crossposter to configure it. I will warn that this plugin is not nearly as simple or clean to install as most all other plugins are. Once you land on the configuration page you need to enter the Database settings from when you originally setup WordPress. The settings are located in your root directory on your web server in the config.php file, which I had to download because I honestly didn’t remember them.
Once that is taken care of, enter both the URL to your blog and your blog name, along with your MySpace login email and password. Lastly is the option to post Notification style, which is a link to your blog, the title of the article posted and a direct link to it, or Whole Blog Entry, where the entire blog post will be republished on your MySpace blog. Default setting is to Notification sytle, which is what I’d suggest leaving it as, it will help drive more traffic to your site and you won’t have to worry about formatting issues.
Click Submit and the settings are saved, you don’t have to do anything else besides write new content. I tested this out and it worked flawlessly, posting a new blog post on my MySpace page mearly seconds after it was published on my site.
The benefits of doing this are many, most importantly it exposes your articles to more people right away and it also helps create back links into your site. While I don’t foresee this as being a huge source of traffic, it is none the less a source. For those people who are active on MySpace and have a lot of friends, it couldn’t hurt at all and it takes no time to do, since it’s fully automated.
Hopefully they can automate the need during intial setup to have the database information already inserted as I think a few bloggers might be turned off by the thought of screwing up their MySQL table information. The whole process took only a few minutes to install and configure though, so I can’t complain.
Now if only I could find a WordPress plugin that would do the same with bulletin postings on MySpace, I’d be fully automated and could spend more time writing. This is a plugin I’d recommend to anyone who is looking for an easy way to cross post articles to the largest social networking site on the internet right now.
MySpace is known as one of the, if not the biggest social networks on the market. With millions and millions of users, advertisers get the attention of a lot of ey
es, but it’s grown even bigger than that. MySpace has long been known to be the launching pad for music artists, knowing that the MySpace market is a target they just could not ignore. Users are able to listen, stream, and even “friend” artists and stay informed.
It just seems like a natural progression for MySpace to enter the music foray with their own MySpace Music site. Just 24 hours old and already MySpace Music has a huge following, and an interesting model that looks to beat out all other music sites. Four major labels on board (Universal, Warner, Sony, EMI), several major publishers, and even the largest independent music provider look to make MySpace Music stand out on its own merit.
Users are able to stream any of the music on the site for free, create playlists of up to 100 songs, share their lists, their streams, and even participate in ranking and viewing other users music selection. All of this creates a music social network that is bound to grow just as fast at their social network specific site, MySpace. New music is also introduced exposing users to new artists and up-can-comers, with the added ability to purchase music which is done through Amazon’s music download service. You want a ringtone? No worries, via Jamster any song on MySpace music can also be yours to carry on your mobile.
The flexibility of MySpace music is unheard of, and I look forward to seeing its growth.
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