Post 3 - The Extended Network

In the last week, my MySpace page has been a little quieter than in previous weeks. I started running out of friends I know to search for their MySpace pages, so my friends list is currently as a very low, compared to other people's pages, 14 friends. But I can live with that. I have made the decision that, other than bands or people who have music to share, I will only let people I actually know be on my friends list. I received two requests from people wanting to be my friends, but decided against adding them to my list. I think that's one of the good things about MySpace as a social networking tool, the fact that you can chose who you want to view your page and profile, and who you want to include as your friends. You can also pick different numbers of 'top friends', who get the privilege of being displayed within your main page. I chose the option of 8, which consists of family and friends. MySpace has plenty of options for socialising and customising. Which is one of the things that makes to so great. I must admit that I have really become addicted to MySpace, even though I had been boycotting it before this assignment.

I find it very interesting how many music artists have pages, with their music available to play within the page. Not only can you listen to their music, but you can use it on your own MySpace page. Just out of curiosity, I recently searched for a band I like, 'The Fray'. I found their page, and added their song "How to Save a Life" to my own page, and now it plays every time someone visits my MySpace profile. This is a great way of making songs well known and getting them out there. Every time you visit a friend's page, you hear a song and if you like it, you might look who the artist is and the name of the song, and then find their MySpace page and become more interested in hearing some of their other songs, or going to their concert.

It's interesting the way you interact with people on MySpace differently, depending on if you see them regularly, or just from time to time. In my case, I find that the friends I see a few days every week are more into MySpace and leaving me comments and notes. Which I then reply to and we create an odd sort of conversation, which is the sum of multiple comments sent back and forth. But then again, it may be just that these friends are more MySpace 'savvy' and more frequent users than my other friends.

-Carlie