The question of myspace
After a conversation that I had on Saturday night, I start to question what exactly myspace means. More so, what I really thought about it, its merit, the time involved the trade off in relation to the whole being in part of social networking in a more general, however, narrow sense. Since that time, I have continually thought about the deletion of myspace as an attempt to foster some rationality in relation to my online presence - what I project to the world.
Hence, in the form of a bulletin, I sent around a circular outlining three theses, which whilst they are not ninety-five and nearly as well thought through, but i have the feeling the will not cause the same outrage, it was something that I think needs to be thought through.
This is the message:
Dear all my fellow myspacers - if that is a term. I am currently have the authorisation codes in my hand, have the key in the switch and am about the push the button on this shebang. Why, well I think that myspace does not enable me to actually engage with an online community a such and pretty much does not do much in the way of facilitating collaboration in relation to constructing creative online communities.
I may consider a new social network site, such as facebook however, who knows how long that will last as an independent entity.
Hence I consider what are three major reasons why I should delete my myspace.
1. It is owned by News Corporation and as such, the fine people who bring us fair and balanced reporting also called the election in 2000 for George Bush, facilitated the beat up over the way in Iraq and basically have done nothing to foster a productive and stimulating environment in the press (please pick up the Herald-Sun to realise this point) or online. Instead they have been seeking to cast social demographics, based on the profile that you complete in order to market to you whilst utilising the site.
2. If I receive a message from someone on the site and it appears in my inbox stating that I have a message, why can I not receive the message. Instead I have to log into my$pace and access it, receive advertising and then reply - has anyone heard of email? And I am happy to cough one up if people want to receive it.
3. Finally, I think that the projection of data that is represented in myspace is inconsistent with the online brand image that I am attempting to construct. Hence to have a sea of information awash in the commons, that basically does little more than just state I have x number of friends and we look and see what everybody is saying, there are more constructive ways of communicating information throughout the commons that top 10 lists and banter that does not have any deep critical practice.
What then is the answer, well I think that myspace is flawed in a number of ways and I would like to know if anybody else has an objection. I think a fortnight is a fair amount of time for discussion, if there is no concrete answer, then it is ciao.
However, I will still be maintaining my blog at http://foldingthought.net and linking to whatever other online communities I maybe able to engage in.
One final thought the topography of the myspace network, does not appear very rhizomatic, instead it is threaded through individual links that just solidify existing structures. For an interesting (although at times divergent) take on these issues, please see Danah Boyd’s paper - Social Network Sites: Public, Private or What.
Once more, whilst I may be living in the age of Web 1.5 - or something like that I think that the energy involved in certain sites is something that, in the long run, would be better invested in maintaining a smaller, yet quality presence on/in the internet. The mind is not 100% sure, yet is welcome to hear other peoples comments about their myspace, or other virtual social network that they may exist within/upon.
Also, I have not fully thought through the topography of the internet, are we in or on it - where is our position when embedded within a network, does it have a spatial schema that we can qualify with position?
Technorati Tags: myspace, social network
