Revised Paper

*This video shows and features the song "New Friend Request" by WMG's Gym Class Heroes and it is there property solely and not my own and is being used for a school project at Appalachian State University in Internet Studies.

My_____________

The Internet phenomenon MySpace was created by Tom Anderson and Chris Dewolfe in 2003 and is based in California. Dewolfe is the former CEO of MySpace and Anderson  is who all of the MySpacers know as Tom, the infamous first friend that any new MySpace user would have and he became the face of the social network. MySpace was the most popular social networking site in June 2006 and was overtaken by its competitor Facebook in April 2008.

Facebook and MySpace are similar in many ways, they let you communicate with your friends, they both allow privacy with private profiles, and the ability to only add who you want to add but MySpace allows the user to be creative and participate in the making of their very own page. On MySpace you can add music that plays on the page, and make custom layouts for each individual page where as Facebook is standard no matter whose page is being looked at.

Though they were over taken by the massive Facebook in 2008, on October 10th 2010 they released their new logo and hopes are that it will grab attention. The new logo was released at the Warm Gun Design Conference. This new logo sports the word my with a large space afterwards. This space will serve as a spot for community art work that will require the participation of MySpacers. Also this requires your participation, please vote for which logo you like best, the old or the new.              

Because of Henry Jenkins we know that MySpace is a part of convergent culture by the definition set in Introduction: "Worship at the altar of convergence." Convergence is "the flow of content across multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want". MySpace fits into this in multiple ways, the first being the fact alone that music groups can make their own MySpace for their band that is treated in the same way other than that they host multiple songs that you can buy directly from the page, or click a lyrics link. Many people that search a band will either click on the actual page, or click on just the song that is hosted by MySpace. This allows pop culture to not only be high accessible but for it to be scrutinized, edited and posted on actual individual people's MySpaces.

This technology is fascinating, but there is even more way that this convergence is prevalent is how this created social change throughout bands and music artist around the world. Almost every band especially smaller local bands have MySpace’s that they advertise on business cards. Larger artist such as 311 a reggae band will advertise to go to its MySpace on a television commercial for their new CD. When consumers access these MySpace’s they can hear what the band has to say as it tells its story and find out what the music artist’s culture is, and how it differentiates or is similar to your own.

In YouTube Cultural Politics “When people take media into their own hands the results can be wonderfully creative; they can also be bad news for all involved.” One of these problems is that producers and consumers are distancing from each other in the aspect that they no longer need each other directly, there is a middle man. Consumers now are a part of the interactive era of advertising and communication and therefore want to act upon participating; they no longer are just willing to listen.

In YouTube Cultural Politics the author says, “YouTube is big enough and global enough, to count as a significant mediating mechanism for the cultural public sphere.” MySpace works in the same way as in that it attracts people from all over the world to join the MySpace world. Also similar to YouTube, MySpace there is a relationship between the individual and the “community” in the face of globalization and cultural difference.  These individuals can represent their identities as well as perspectives on the Internet. They also have the ability to engage with others that might have the same values or maybe other values. In other words MySpace is allowing everyone to communicate with everyone else who is willing.

MySpace may have become a dinosaur and died out, though it wasn’t from the 20^th century. Though it is trying to make a comeback and keep up with the times. MySpace is part of pop culture, convergent culture and participatory culture. It has become part of industrialization and integrated into our daily lives. MySpace allows individuals to become the media and to have opinions that are viewed by society.