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Is MySpace a passing fad?

There’s one problem with being trendy: Trends only last so long. In the trendy world of social networking, Friendster has already come and gone, and MySpace is showing signs of jumping the shark. Both of these sites allow people to create their own personal sites, link to friends, upload photos and other media, and generally create a virtual home for themselves online for free. Sites such as Xanga and MySpace have become especially popular among teens. And MySpace says it has tens of millions of users, and was bought recently by News Corp. for $580 million. But now ABC News Radio is doing a series on MySpace, questioning its popularity and staying power.

Do you think MySpace will last, or has it lost its street cred? What about social networking sites in general? Which ones do you like and use regularly? Use the comments below to share your thoughts, and I’ll quote the best ones in next week’s Your Take Roundup.

Mark Glaser :Mark Glaser is founder and executive director of MediaShift. He contributes regularly to Digital Content Next’s InContext site and newsletter. Glaser is a longtime freelance journalist whose career includes columns on hip-hop, reviews of videogames, travel stories, and humor columns that poked fun at the titans of technology. From 2001 to 2005, he wrote a weekly column for USC Annenberg School of Communication's Online Journalism Review. Glaser has written essays for Harvard's Nieman Reports and the website for the Yale Center for Globalization. Glaser has written columns on the Internet and technology for the Los Angeles Times, CNET and HotWired, and has written features for the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Entertainment Weekly, the San Jose Mercury News, and many other publications. He was the lead writer for the Industry Standard's award-winning "Media Grok" daily email newsletter during the dot-com heyday, and was named a finalist for a 2004 Online Journalism Award in the Online Commentary category for his OJR column. Glaser won the Innovation Journalism Award in 2010 from the Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication. Glaser received a Bachelor of Journalism and Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Missouri at Columbia, and currently lives in San Francisco with his wife Renee and his two sons, Julian and Everett. Glaser has been a guest on PBS' "Newshour," NPR's "Talk of the Nation," KALW's "Media Roundtable" and TechTV's "Silicon Spin." He has given keynote speeches at Independent Television Service's (ITVS) Diversity Retreat and the College Media Assocation's national convention. He has been part of the lecture/concert series at Yale Law School and Arkansas State University, and has moderated many industry panels. He spoke in May 2013 to the Maui Business Brainstormers about the "Digital Media Revolution." To inquire about speaking opportunities, please use the site's Contact Form.

View Comments (29)

  • i have a myspace it wont be a thing in the past i know 5th graders and 4th graders who are waiting to get a myspace when they get into the 6th grade. myspace is enjoyable and fun and i can say it will not be a thing in the past

  • Myspace may be fading, but a similar site called Vampirefreaks is just growing, its never gonna end. A 23 year old male from Medicine Hat, Alberta Canada met his 12 year old girlfriend on Vampirefreaks, and are both being charged for murder, According to the site founder, it does not condone death and violence, but a lot kids talk about that sorta stuff anyways. I once had a VF account but I deleted it recently, realizing all the kids on that site are a bunch of losers who need to get a life.

  • My friends and I use Myspace.. we're all 13 and fourteen. I myself think that Myspace is just a danger route, since it asks for so much information! Based on the abduction reports that Myspace has gotten, it isn't looking to good on the news right now. I use Xanga since I've grown used to it's html setup. I probably wouldn't be using any of these weblogs if I hadn't found joy in making "layouts". My father and I always watch out for people that we don't know lurking around the net. I have a lot of Xanga trackers that I put on my site to track peoples' I.P addresses. It works very well. [:

  • I met my boyfriend on MySpace... Actually, he found me, added me as a friend, and started emailing me every day. I had no intention of ever meeting him, but we talked for 3 months and I realized he wasn't going anywhere. He really wanted to get to know me! I agreed to meet him and we've been together going on 4 months now.. And still going strong. Even if things don't work out between us in the end, this relationship wouldn't exist if it weren't for MySpace. If MySpace ever does fade away, I'll never look back on it as JUST a "passing trend." It brought me great happiness, and maybe lifelong happiness..

  • the only thing keeping myspace alive is the music part. once facebook gets the music part down. myspace will die.

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