So what's up with Myspace? Is is my imagination or is it getting progressively suckier. First of all, I am getting so tired of all the scantily clad floozy-chick-dating service advertisements. It is REALLY getting annoying. Yesterday, I am at church, I have a student coming in for a guitar lesson, I click on Myspace to check for messages and some HUGE pic of a girl with her rear half-hangin' out plopps up on my computer screen, UNINVITED. The pastor walks by my open door at my church office and sees this kid looking at a chick on the computer screen and a frantically clicking Seth trying to get the STUPID advertisement off my CHURCH COMPUTER. Needless to say, my pastor and the kid get a big kick out of me and the predicament I which I have been helplessly thrust.It is not just this but the flash advertisements have increased exponetially. The stupid little game advertisements have become so powerful and memory-eating that it takes twice as long for the songs to load and sometimes I am, against my will, taken to a page because the games that these advertisements use to lure potential idiots, are so asinine that they actually win all by THEMSELVES, without you EVER EVEN PLAYING THEM! (However, I did try that one where George Bush was boxing Mike Tyson. That one was kinda cool)
Is this what happens when something cool is taken over by "the man"??? I can only surmise that this has happened. "Tom" is no longer really at the helm. It seems to me that some corporate money-grubbing jerk has come along and said "hey, this is the wave of the future, a haven for Indies, good and bad, and normal everyday Joes. Lets take it over, saturate it with already established artists and well known figures in pops culture and screw it up!!!!!
Sorry for all the venting here, I realize that there are much worse things going on in the world like oh, um.... WWIII, and I am too busy lately paying attention to the craziness in the Middle-East to do the Myspace research, So if anyone feels the need to do "something to take your mind off that pain" ?(name that movie), fill me in on the Myspace scoop.
9 comments:
"PLOP!!" that was my stone.
Myspace has sucked for a long time. But I don't think it actually has much at all to do with it being taken over by "the man", even though he makes a convenient scapegoat.
First of all, my biggest complaint probably wouldn't be the ads and stuff (though all that does suck), it's the unavailability and unreliability of Myspace in general. At any given moment, some part of the site that you click on will be completely unavailable, or it will take five minutes to load each page.
But that's not really surprising, since they probably have more simultaneous users at any given moment than most any website in history, so just keeping all the databases straight and serving up pages is quite a technological feat.
It's also my understanding that they are currently being hit hard by the rolling blackouts in California, and I guess there's nothing that can be done about that (I would say "backup generators", but since I work with server farms and related technology myself, I know that the generator you'd need to power Myspace would probably be big enough to power a whole city, and since none of it is "critical data", they're not willing to invest in it and I don't blame them).
And yet, Myspace is still the devil you will have to dance with if you want to be cutting-edge in the music industry now, especially indies. (And by "you", I mean you guys, Seth and Amber, and any other musicians). Your target audience is there, and people pretty much expect everyone who is anyone to have something up on Myspace.
As for the ad banners, consider this: All those fancy (not) servers and all that mega-bandwidth, and everyone it takes to run such a large site -- it ain't free. A majority of the users on Myspace will never spend a dime on the site, but because of the number of eyes that will see pages on that site, advertisers can't pass up the opportunity to target such a large, captive, and easily influenced demographic.
So basically, Myspace sucks, it will continue to suck, and for the present moment, you'll like it, dammit, and you'll just have to deal with it. >:-)
Well I guess I can cut them some slack for the rolling blackouts...
And I would rather it be there than not, but I am just thinking that it worse lately than before. I am wondering if face book might be a good thing to start doing instead of myspace.
FCS is about to undergo cosmetic surgery anyways. We have some really exciting things coming up that I won't talk about until it gets here but it is going to be FUN!
I do wonder how fast they would catch you if you removed all the banners.
btw, does anyone know how blogger stays up without all the advertisements???
what i think of when thinking of my space...kidnapped teenage girls, or ignoramous, unwatched by parents teenage girls lured my middle eastern men into marriage. very funny about the sexy pop-ups and your pastor. only you could play that one off.
The only thing about Face Book is you can't be a part unless you are a student at a university.. So, if you do it instead of myspace, you might shut out alot of people.
Please tell me you have a web filter of some kind. There is no reason to allow any website total access to the capabilities of one's computer. I got sick and tired of the pop-ups, java ads, amnimated adds years ago. For $30 you can get the program I use, AdSubtract, that lets you control all this and more. You can set a blanket restriction (no java spript or applets, no cookies, no bg music/images, no animation, no pop-ups, no auto-refresh, etc.) and choose individual sites that allow some or all of these things. When I visit Myspace (or CNN, IMDB, etc.), I get only what I want to get and nothing more. I like their product, and there are others as well.
As a side note, the company I work for kills all attempts to visit a Myspace page, not because it is a timesuck but because of the rampant sexual nature that it is taking on.
Hey thanks for the tips Euphorny! I didn't know that you could selectively block some of that stuff from Myspace. Does that program work with Mac's?
You are talking to a Mac-crazy guy here.
You Mac-ies - always looking for a fix for the system that "never has problems". I admitted long ago that Bill Gates did not, in fact, know exactly what I needed and tweaked to my hearts content. Unfortunately, AdSubtract does not support Macs (get onto them, it is a great product), but here are a few options for you check out:
1) Internet Cleanup 4.0 - of the couple I checked out, this may be your best bet.
2) NetSentry 1.1 - looks okay, but old
3)Check out the options in the browser you are using; they may be customizable to some extent. If you use Safari, you may consider going to FireFox. I say this because I understand FireFox has built-in options for selective blocking of pop-ups and ads.
Anyway, just a few ideas for you to check out. Down with the advertisers (except the ones for up and coming indie bands)! When you are looking at the products, be sure to spend a few minutes reading the comments to get a flavor for what you would be getting into. Good luck!
euphrony
dude, just install firefox. the best webbrowser in the world. Pop up blocker- sucka.
so... myspace advertisement are utilizing some technology that Google uses or something like that with targeted ads. Meaning that a lot of the ads are matched to fit what you do on MySpace. so seth... why are you getting scantily clad women on your page? huh? huh? jk. i get scantily clad men on mine... uhg. *shudder*
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