just another Myspace rant

[julesjones]

When someone does a friend request on me on MySpace, and I look and see that they have nothing on their profile indicating a reason why they might find me interesting, and they have over 3000 friends already, many of them added in the last 48 hours -- I'm inclined to think that the reason they friended me is that if I friend them back I'll have a non-stop stream of advertising in my bulletin board.

Yes, I know that this sort of spamming is socially acceptable on MySpace, to the point where it's considered a reason why any self-respecting writer/musician/whatever should get an account. It's also a major contributing factor in why my MySpace account is pretty much moribund. Much though I may hate aspects of LJ, my experience has been that if someone friends me on LJ it is almost always because they are interested in reading my blog, whereas on MySpace it is almost always because they are *only* interested in having me read theirs. One of the reasons for that difference is, I think, that on LJ friending need not be mutual, whereas on MySpace it is explicitly mutual.

Every time I get one of these ads masquerading as a "let's be friends" and stealing my time in checking it out, it makes me feel even more of a grumpy old fart, because I was brought up on usenet and hate spammers with a fiery passion. But it's my Official Author MySpace, so I feel that I can't just batten down the hatches and make it so that you have to know my email address to send me a friend request, because I do get the occasional genuine request from a fan or acquaintance who might not know my email address. Gah.

Comments

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I have three myspace accounts - all for music related things. It's fine for musicians as it lets them put up music samples that would otherwise eat valuable webspace and hopefully gains them a wider audience... at least that's the theory.
http://www.myspace.com/artisanharmony
http://www.myspace.com/birdsedgelive
http://www.myspace.com/jaceybedfordtourmanagement

I also have a music industry blog on myspace, (on the tourmanagement site)a kind of embryonic Miss Snark for folk musicians, but there's no indication that anyone actually reads it or finds it useful. Oddly enough you don't get to know who is subscribed... unless no one is, of course

But I can't see why anyone would want a myspace account if they are not musicians.

Ditto a facebook account, which I do have but don't use as I find it totally user unfriendly. I don't see how people actually use facebook to continue any meaningful interaction... I mean... why should I have to write on someone's wall? It's positively lavatorial! Maybe you have to be 16 to appreciate it.

No, I'll stick to LJ. I only found it a few months ago, but I'm a complete convert.

[julesjones]

There are also a lot of "general public" people on MySpace, as there are on LJ, and that's what this promo stuff is about. If you're an artist of some sort you get on MySpace both to network with your peers and to have somewhere for your existing and potential fans to find you -- and to go out and find them, with things like friending people whose interests indicate that they might be interested in you.

This makes some sort of sense with live performance artists, such as musicians and comedians, because the event notification tools and so on can be genuinely useful to fans. But there's a lot of pressure on writers to get a MySpace account, simply because it's the latest fad in self-promotion. It's often pushed specifically as something where you go around and friend-request anyone who looks as if they might have the faintest interest in something remotely related to the topic of your book, in the hope that they will look at your profile, see that you have written a book, and decide to buy it.

In theory, it's also somewhere where if you have an account, your fans will friend it and be able to interact with you, and will get a buzz out of being able to say that you friended them back. I do know a few writers who find that they get that sort of interaction, and I suspect that if I was a bit more active there I might see some of it myself. But the MySpace interface is *horrible*, to the point of being physically painful for me to use, and it doesn't provide me with anything useful that I don't already get on LJ.

And LJ doesn't insist on displaying my age gender and [spit] star sign to the world...

[lordpomposo.livejournal.com]

Dear Jules: Cheer up. All those promiscuous "friends" are leaving an electronic trail. I am looking forward to the confirmation hearing thrity odd years from now, where nominee after nominee goes down in flames when it is revealed that they once friended the notorious Jules Jones, and hence are what the 1950s called a Comsymp. We need something to brighten our golden years.

Best regards,
Lord Pomposo

[julesjones]

[howls with laughter] Indeed, I do wonder if some of these people have considered whether it is entirely advisable to friend random strangers...