Myspace

A little over a year ago I became aware of a web site called Myspace. It was apparently some sort of social networking site. Within a matter of months it seems that everyone began to have a myspace page there (kind of like how blogs are a dime a billion these days). This place can’t help but make me cringe. Not because pedophiles and perverts might be preying on unsuspecting / stupid kids, not because it’s completely pop and everyone and their dog (or in some cases just their dog, heh) has a myspace page, and not because it’s filled with whores and losers that have nothing better to do than post trash on there…

But because it’s revolting to look at. Seriously. First off the site starts out hideous. Then there are these “myspace editors” that people come up with, that help users modify the code on their site to “personalize” it… oh man. Those are often even worse, they’ll nauseate you or possibly even give you a seizure. And it’s sloowwwww. That might be because apparently it has 66 million users and reportedly 250,000 signing up every day. But really– who the crap clicks on those ugly banners that they slap RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR PAGE? Seriously. They could learn a thing or 2 from google.

Here’s why I brought this up– I was reading an article about how myspace is deleting “objectionable” profiles in an effort to clean up the site and make it a “safer” place for young users. (side comment: 66 million users, that means 66 million profiles, right? 200,000 is a drop in the bucket, a token clean-up effort. I guarantee you if you log on to myspace you’re still only 2-3 clicks away from the objectionable material they claim to be cleaning up).

Anywyas, in that article it mentions that it was bought out last year by News Corp. Big corporation running the show now, you’d think they might fix this horrible site, make it a little more intuitive and aesthetically pleasing, no? Apparently not:

In terms of retaining its appeal, Mr Chernin said users had to keep feeling the site was theirs. “We don’t want to change the fundamental look and feel of the site,” he said. “We do not want users to have any sense that it is corporatised.”

There you have if, folks. The masses WANT garbage. Heaven forbid you give the site a professional touch. And why not just leave it looking like crap– then you don’t have to pay anyone to fix it, you just bought an ugly gold mine, News Corp.

I guess the masses’ need to consume garbage is the reason why you can find McDonalds anywhere in the world, eh?

/rant.

For the record, I don’t mind people using it for social networking– ie, to keep in touch with friends who’ve moved away, etc. I do mind the amount of trashy content on there, but welcome to the Internet. I mostly just like to rant about how ugly it is 😉