What Is Myspace?

By Author: Katherine Murphy
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Are you ready for a fun brain teaser? What currently has over 300 million accounts, is free of charge and brags about 230,000 new members daily? If you guessed Myspace, then you are correct!

The social networking site, Myspace, was first launched in 1999 by Intermix Media. Social networking sites concentrate on building online social communities for people who share the same interests, friends, politics and so forth. Some of Myspace's well-known competitors include Facebook, Bebo and Skyblog. But exactly happens when you have a Myspace account?

Myspace is basically a profile about you, including interests, hobbies, embedded video or music, a blog and more. You can look at it as a multimedia resume of yourself that you share with others of your choice. Friends leave messages on your profile while you leave messages on theirs.

Myspace starts you off with a general palette that you can fill in. Some of these sections include about me, who I'd like to meet, and details. Areas that are not filled in will be left out of the profile your friends see. You can also add pictures, and select ...
... one to be the default of your name.

Once your profile is to your liking, you can then begin to invite friends to your space. You will soon accumulate a nice list of friends, who are then networked together. For instance, you may have Joe and Mary as friends. When Joe visits your site, he can see you have a friend named Mary and visit her space by clicking on her default picture from your location.

Safety is an issue for parents whose children have Myspace accounts. If your child has a Myspace profile, it is important to teach him or her basic internet safety rules. For instance, never give out a name, age, city, school or any other personal information to strangers (or to those on other friends' profiles). Kids should not use their full names, and if they do, their accounts should be flagged as invite only. This means the general public cannot view their profile. In order to gain access to your child's account, they must request and be given permission to the profile.

As a parent, you may wish to create your own account and add your child as a friend. Sound funny? Actually this is an excellent way to keep tabs on what your child is saying, what friends he or she has, and what THOSE friends are saying. Children often think of themselves as anonymous on the internet, and post things they think parents will never come across.

But Myspace in general can be a fun way to send messages to friends and demonstrate a bit of personal creativity. You can enter basic HTML to your profile to include paragraphs, pictures and more. And for those who do not know HTML, there are thousands of websites that have created pre-made layouts, graphics, comment boxes and more for Myspace profiles. These usually have backgrounds, and can cover almost any look, from animals to skateboard layouts or even Christian backgrounds. Simply visit one of these sites, pick out a fun layout and copy it into your profile.