Myspace

Myspace: www.myspace.com

Introduction

The main purpose of this essay is to describe the social network, MySpace; analysing the modes of the value production, the kind of labour involved or exploited and the business model behind the web surface. Along with this description we provide additional information on the value production of the website and how it transforms its value to money.

Synopsis

MySpace is one of several social networking portals that has been largely recognised in the last several years along with Friendster, http://www.friendster.com, Facebook, http://www.facebook.com and many more. MySpace has developed and become the 5th biggest website worldwide, now having 48 million individual visitors and 27.4 billion page views in June 2006. The users are mostly between 14 and 34 years old, and the numbers of members are growing by 5 million a month, according to MySpace's numbers [Kornblum, 2006]. Since early 2006, MySpace has also offered to access the service in different regional versions, this is; Global site, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland and United Kingdom.

The MySpace website consists of web profiles, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail, music downloads, photo galleries, events, groups, chatrooms, and user forums. It's basically a website where people connect and share their life experiences. Because MySpace can play and store music [http://music.myspace.com], it has become the way for musical groups to promote themselves and by this way become more popular. People rely on the website for all their advertising needs and it brings more advantage as bands can sign up for a free URL and upload several MP3 files and visitors can search, browse, and download music from the site even if they are not members.

There are many diverse MySpace profiles such as normal user profile, artist profile, filmmaker profile and comedian profile. Only uploading pictures and the profile information is common to all the profiles like name, friend list, comments from others and blogs. Users have the liberty to add film clips, music and more on their personal page to make it more personal and say more about themselves as individuals.

A regular MySpace page

The page of upcoming artistes

This website has increased aspiring bands or artistes recognition, giving people the opportunity to sample their music and this is of advantage because they get to reach out to a very versatile crowd of different backgrounds and age groups.

After researching the social networks culture, it was found that various concepts of business models apply to it with various measures of likeness or difference. A single reference model was found by an Alex Osterwalder, which almost puts together the different, various models and is used to analyze MySpace.

http://www.tmu.ethz.ch/education

MySpace via efficient distribution has made great value by having a trusted relationship with its customers and through that attracting new ones. Understanding and delivering value to the customer creates brand equity for the company that translates to value for the company.

The social network of MySpace is the actual source of value production and the value of good is more or less determined by the user base. The website delivers value with the addition of things outside the networks initial effects or culture (therefore reaching out to more of the potential customers and masses) such as photo sharing, bloging and so on. "The network effects are considered to arise on the demand side, distinguishing this from the often used term "economy of scale", which is supply side." (Shapiro and Varian)

MySpace's great success can be brought down to its different cultural practices and values from other similar social networks. By using the peer-to-peer network model, MySpace allows users to take control of the sites content while sharing their intellectual capital. The way the consumers use the site for self-expression is one of the factors bringing great success to this website. Being able to personalize the page according to your taste, with pictures and blogs and trying to create the best profile is of great importance to the social network. They listen to the users wants and needs and actually implement what is suggested in their strategies. Almost every week a new feature is added, giving a more personal chance and therefore making the user furthermore interested in the website.

The fact that anybody can be anybody's friend is another factor in the company's success, especially with the