Archive for 'MySpace News'

Play Games With MySpace

Soon enough, at least as soon as 2008 gets here, you will be able to play casual games through your MySpace profile. It was announced yesterday that MySpace and Oberon Media signed a deal that would enable the social club mogul to create a 'Gaming' channel as part of it's users profile. This essentially would give MySpace users the ability to add games to their profiles, much like they do now.

Click here to see an example of adding games to your MySpace profile! 

No doubt the program will allow for much better games and a more streamlined interactivity. Also, for the cheapskates pondering in the background, YES this will be a free service. So stop saving those pennies and buy that dog you always wanted.

Through the partnership, MySpace users will be able to add games to their profile pages from Oberon’s extensive portfolio of stellar casual titles, allowing them to play and socialize with friends through their favorite casual games.

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Free Skype Calls on MySpace

That's right, starting in November all MySpace users will be able to place free Skype calls to their friends on MySpace. The services will be potentially integrated with the MySpace IM service and allow a quick connect with your friends. Imagine, being able to instantly connect over VOIP with more than 25 million MySpace users and over 220 million global users of Skype.

Skype is an eBay owned company that allows users to keep in touch via instant message and through voice over IP(VOIP). As it stands on it's own, to place calls on Skype it costs $3 per month for unlimited calling. Thanks to MySpace this service will become completely free!

Hold your breathe, because you're gonna need it in a few weeks.

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Selling Privacy Information

How far is too far and what are you willing to sacrifice for a few more social networking features? According to a new study most Facebook and MySpace users are willing to let companies sell their private information for access to new features.

The article is a little misleading in that it considers personal information your email address and pictures that you upload. Its not like they are sending your credit card information to the highest bidder or even your home address. Essentially social networking sites sell your data via advertisements on your profile page.

Sounds good to me, as long as I can keep tabs on my friends.

MySpace China & Microsoft, Setting in a Tree

k-i-s-s-i-n-g, or something like that. The latest news out of the Red side is that the social networking giant MySpace and Microsoft have teamed up to bring a community channel to China. I'm confused, I thought China was blocking all MySpace, blogs, and any sort of open communication amongst citizens. doh!

"As a channel partner, this will help MySpace China to further enhance its brand image and continuously upgrade its quality of service to reach white-collar users."

And spread propaganda.

Superbowl MySpace Ads

Already announcing it's bid to use MySpace as another source of advertisement, Fox announced today it's intention to offer ad spots on MySpace. The Superbowl had over 93.2 million viewers last year and this year expectations are high, so who will pay $2.7 million per 30 second ad spot? Hard to say, but with MySpace's draw to sweeten the deal, I'm sure there will be no shortage of takers.

According to comScore, 7 percent of the 1,000 viewers it surveyed went online to watch ads after the game. MySpace had 126,000 unique viewers of the game's ads in the week after the Super Bowl.

Throwing your internet weight around will be a deciding factor in the upcoming year, for all media networks. With a larger percentage of homes having highspeed internet, the advertising medium is shifting and the big players will have to adjust...much as the Fox network is.

"This marks the biggest move yet by a network to try to leverage its Internet ties to buyers who are increasingly demanding a Web component in their marketing plans," the report says.

Expect the zaniness of the Superbowl ads on TV to match those online, via MySpace.

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Punched In The Face On MySpace

I feel like all I right about is students being disciplined and individuals losing their jobs over MySpace content. Why? Apparently MySpace is on everyones mind and where else should inquiring minds go when they have nothing better to do, but nose around in other peoples business.

The news today is that a 19 year old student in Mansfield Ohio was suspended for 3 days from school for punching a 'friend' in the face. The students were not caught and the person on the receiving end of the punch agreed to the punch, but it was filmed in the school parking lot. Guess where the video showed up at? derrrrrr, MySpace.

So, for $70, a mutually agreed upon punch in the face, and a video camera you too can be suspended from school. This means whether you were caught or not, MySpace content can still come back to haunt you. I don't care how funny it may seem at the time. Don't these teachers have better things to do than nose through kids MySpace profiles? I have an idea, how about teach. Boys will be boys.

Obama MySpace Takeover

It's almost a joke, a MySpace profile influencing a presidential campaign. However, it is no joke and Barrack Obama is taking his name and profile back on MySpace. Not that it was ever stolen, the person who maintained the profile worked for Obama's presidential campaign.

Recently the profile exploded with page views and popularity as the friends list vaulted over 160,000. Obama, whom feared that if anyone else controlled the profile, a misrepresentation of his platform or worse would happen. So, did Obama lose a vote because of his bullying?

Anthony wrote on his MySpace blog that he was heartbroken that the Obama campaign was "bullying" him out of the page he built. He initially said the candidate lost his vote, but Obama may have begun to win it back after a Wednesday evening phone call that Anthony called a great honor. Anthony said he was so nervous that he doesn't remember exactly what Obama said, but the candidate expressed his appreciation and they agreed everyone learned a lesson in this case.

As a potential future leader to our country, doesn't he have better things to be worried about? I suppose if he ever does become president he will want to control what Digg Users have to say.

Is MySpace Your Space?

Another case has surfaced where an individual has been affected due to content on a MySpace profile.

Millersville University denied Stacy Snyder a teaching certificate on the eve of her graduation after finding a picture of her on MySpace with the caption "Drunken Pirate." The case looks like it could be a landmark for internet privacy rights.

Users must remember that MySpace is a public forum, just like any place else, where your actions speak. In this case it happened to be a picture of Stacy Snyder enjoying an adult beverage, which in turn has been spun into her 'encouraging' underage drinking. Although that may not be the case, there are still ramifications for allowing that picture to end up in a public realm. But who's responsibility is it to keep private images/information off of MySpace?

Industry experts believe that this case could possibly become the benchmark, which regulates MySpace (amongst other social networks) privacy. BloggingStocks asks the question, if the court rules that you could lose your job/diploma over what's on MySpace, would you have YourSpace?

American Idol and MySpace to Raise Awareness

American Idol’s popularity is being used for the greater good. “Idol Gives ack” is a program dedicated to raising funds and awareness about the overty level in Africa and parts of America. American Idol candidates and their fans have pages on My Space in the hope of gaining popularity, exposure and even votes. “Idol Gives Back” now has its own My Space page
with the same aspirations.

The page boasts pictures, videos, blogs and links to charity organizations. Idol fans voted on April 24, 2007 for an
extended voting period for their favorite contestants with monetary donations given for the first fifty million votes. After five successful seasons of growing popularity, season six is proving to be the greatest yet.

MySpace News Launched in Beta

The 'Web 2.0' cliche is that everything must be launched as a beta and MySpace News is no different. The reason, that I think, is because there are probably going to be errors and the developers can just point at the 'Beta' name and say, "I told you it wasn't done." So, what's the point? There is none, other than announcing that MySpace News is now on the scene.

Q: What is MySpace News?
MySpace News aggregates news from around the web and provides MySpace users with the ability to vote on what they think is most interesting.

Yes, that means that MySpace News will be Digg style, which means it will be a target for spammers and corruption. The difference is that apparently the news is not submitted by users, rather it's culled from an existing pot of submitted RSS feeds and news resources. Therefore all content will be monitored before it even hits the browse page.

Below is a cute little ribbon they offer to news sites elite enough to be included in their index(No, ObsceneCaffeine.com is not one of them. -David):

What makes MySpace News different is the ability to browse for local news. Most major cities are located in the navigation bar, where popular news from that geo location is displayed. Different, yes, life saving, perhaps. Personally, if I had billions of dollars to throw at a project, it'd be a little more not-beta and a lot more unique.