Week 5 - Privacy and Security

A lot of talk has circulated since Myspace’s beginnings about privacy and security, as well as the influence interaction with Myspace has on young people.

In June 2006, a Deputy Sheriff in Florida was fired for posting "inappropriate information" on his profile page. (Ives, 2006). Other instances of people being fired because of their Myspace pages and/or activity abound (Porter, 2007) and(Weboptimiser.com, 2005). It raises two questions – “Should employers be able to check up and even fire workers based on their Myspace Profiles?” and “Do people not realize that their profiles are public?”!

I tired to approach the first question from two angles – as an employee, and as an employer.

As an employee, it would make me uncomfortable to think my boss is “checking up on me”. It doesn’t relate to work, and therefore shouldn’t be of any interest to my employer. Although I don’t believe my profile has anything negative or incriminating, I think the general feeling is that your profile is yours, personal.

But in reality it’s in public space, and as an employer I’d think that entitles me to be able to look at it. I think this point is one which most people miss. Why shouldn’t an employer looking to hire someone be able to check an applicants Myspace page? It’s going to give them a more realistic view then a glossed-up résumé.

Myspace have realized that a number of users want to be exclusive about who views their profile pages (as well as reacting to bad press around privacy). There is the included option to block a users profile from public eyes: the user has to approve a profile view (Myspace.com, 2007[2]). They also have “Safety Tips” which encourage people to be wary of what they post (Myspace.com, 2007[1]).

When I first opened my profile I had set it to “public”. After a few months changed it to “private”. I found that my social networking focused on my existing “real world” friendships and I was not interacting with unknown people I had added to my friend list. Also, spam emails and friendship requests abounded. I found that the change of security status solved these problems.

References & Quoted Links

• Ives, M. (2006). Deputy fired for MySpace.com postings. Available: http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060621/NEWS/60621003/1001/NEWS01. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

• Porter, J. (2007). Woman Denied Degree because of MySpace Profile Pic. Available: http://bokardo.com/archives/woman-denied-degree-because-of-myspace-profile/. Last accessed 27 October 2007.
  
  
• Weboptimiser.com. (2005). AAA workers fired over MySpace messages. Available: http://www.weboptimiser.com/search_engine_marketing_news/15018570.html. Last accessed 27 October 2007.
  
  
• Myspace.com. (2007). Safety Tips. Available: http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=cms.viewpage&placement=safetytips. Last accessed 27 October 2007.
  

• Myspace.com. (2007). How do I set my profile to private? . Available: http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.faq&Category=6&Question=42. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

Week 4 - Corporate Interest and Advertising

In July of 2005, Rupert Murdoc’s News Corp. bought Myspace for US$580 million (BBC News, 2007). This was one of the first big Internet company buyouts following the “dot com crash” (Investopedia, 2006). It was followed by the likes of Google buying Youtube (The Associated Press, 2006) and more recently Microsoft buying a stake in Facebook (BBC News,2007[2]).

In anyone’s language, $580 million is a lot of money to pay for a website. But Myspace isn’t really any old website; statistics reveal the site gets more than 1 billion views per day (Guthrie, 2006).

With that many people visiting the same place every day, Mysapce.com is very lush ground for advertising, and the number one reason for Murdoc’s buyout. He claims that the website is now worth 10 times what he paid for it in 2005. (Meyer, 2006)

And adverting sure is prevalent on Myspace. With banner ads, “Myspace music exclusives", “Myspace specials”, and sponsored links, it’s down right impossible to escape without resorting to installing ad-blocking software into your browser, which I recently have done.

I have found that this form of advertising has been one of the most annoying and frustrating aspects of my interaction with Myspace. Brightly coloured, moving and noisy Flash-based ads seem to be on every page, and are very distracting. Before installing ad-blocking software, I found I would quickly tire of accidentally rolling over an ad and having it scream catchphrases at me. It brought down my entire experience.

The most annoying thing is that Internet based advertising doesn’t have to be done in this form. I find Google’s text-based advertisements remarkably more tasteful and appealing. (http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Google-revs-up-profits-as-advertising-revenues-soar/2007/10/19/1192301041298.html). The noise and movement of Myspace’s Flash ads may be more eye-catching, but they work against themselves – I don’t want whatever’s being sold if it’s being sold like that!

There is another form of advertising on Myspace that doesn’t directly profit Murdoc’s News Corp; profiles set up as advertising are becoming more common. This method is called “Viral marketing” (marketingterms.com, 2007), where companies set up profiles for their brand which are added as “Friends” by Myspace users. The hope is that the viral profile will continue to be added as “Friends” through social networks, like something would be passed around by “word of mouth” outside of the digital world. I recently set up a profile with this intent for one of my friend’s businesses, http://www.myspace.com/elohimdesigns.

Another similar method is to create faux-personal profiles of people using or engaging with the product or service being advertised. Lingerie brand Elle McPherson Intimates has done this reasonably successfully with it’s (Gordon-MacIntosh, 2007).

Both viral methods are cheap and effective marketing, and is being seen more commonly around Myspace. Movies, events, and brands – all have their own profiles, and what brand profiles you have listed as friends can often be read by other users as an indicator of personality.

References & Quoted Links

• BBC News. (2005). News Corp in $580m internet buy. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4695495.stm. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

• BBC News. (2007). Microsoft buys stake in Facebook. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7061042.stm. Last accessed 27 October 2007.
  
  
• Gordon-MacIntosh, J. (2007). Elle McPherson Campaign. Available: http://t4w.blogs.com/spinningaround/2007/08/elle-mcpherson-.html. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

• Guthrie, S. (2006). Handling 1.5 Billion Page Views Per Day Using ASP.NET 2.0. Available: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/03/25/441074.aspx. Last accessed 27 October 2007.
  
  
• Investopedia. (2006). Crashes: The Dotcom Crash. Available: http://www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes8.asp. Last accessed 2 November 2007.
  
  
• marketingterms.com. (2007). Viral Marketing. Available: http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/viral_marketing/. Last accessed 27 October 2007.
  
  
• Meyer, A. (2006). News Corp: MySpace Worth $6 Billion. Available: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/15/news-corp-myspace-worth-6-billion/. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

• Sydney Morning Herald. (2007). Google revs up profits as advertising revenues soar.27 October 2007. Available: http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Google-revs-up-profits-as-advertising-revenues-soar/2007/10/19/1192301041298.html. Last accessed

• The Associated Press. (2006). Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion. Available: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15196982/. Last accessed 27 October 2007.

• http://www.myspace.com/elohimdesigns

• http://www.myspace.com/intimatedrummergirl