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MySpace Attracts Young, Powerful; The Popular Web Site, a Meeting Place for Teens and Young Adults, is Now Owned By Rupert Murdoch.

Posted on: Sunday, 4 December 2005, 18:00 CST

By EDWARD D. MURPHY Staff Writer

At first glance, MySpace.com seems like a combination cyber high school cafeteria and online singles bar.

Typical members will post a picture or two, list likes and dislikes, offer links to blogs and use the site as a way to meet potential dates, keep in touch with friends and find people with shared interests.

But MySpace is more than just a social gathering for those in their teens and early 20s. In less than two years since its launch, the Web site claims more than 40 million members - only Google and Yahoo! get more page views on the Internet - and has become a marketing gold mine.

Its corporate parent is media oligarch Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp., which owns the Fox movie and television businesses, satellite programming, newspapers and magazines.

Last week, the Web site attracted the attention of Maine police and parents when word spread of a page that may belong to 14-year- old Patrick Armstrong of Fayette, who is charged with murdering a neighbor, 14-year-old Marlee Johnston. The page refers to an interest in serial killers and school shootings and listed one of the Columbine High School killers as a "hero."

Police investigators are believed to be examining the page, which has been removed from the site.

MySpace and the other social Web sites geared toward youths have been under the radar of parents, said Katharine Heintz-Knowles, who teaches media studies at the University of Southern Maine.

"The parents didn't really know about it," she said. "They were shocked by the stuff that you could find on there."

MySpace and a handful of similar Internet sites provide the ultimate marketplace for companies looking to reach an audience with money to spend on iPods and downloaded music, movie tickets and cell phones.

This summer, Murdoch's News Corp. bought Intermix Media - MySpace's parent company - for $580 million.

MySpace was a principal part of transaction: even though Intermix owned just 53 percent of MySpace, the company's division of Internet sites provided roughly half of its corporate revenue - and MySpace was the funnel through which most of that cash flowed. News Corp. is exercising an option to buy the rest of MySpace.

The site is free to users, supported by ads for online dating services, cell phones and electronics stores. It is often used to launch new CDs and promote movies and television shows, with e-mail invitations asking members to listen to a band's release or watch a movie trailer.

The marketing aspect of My- Space has proven lucrative. In its last quarterly income filing before the acquisition by News Corp., Intermix Media reported revenue of $26.7 million and net income of $1.2 million. Both numbers should climb once News Corp. buys the rest of MySpace.

Users sign up and post a profile, prodded by questions such as whether they prefer vanilla or chocolate, get along with their parents or have ever stolen anything. They're quizzed on drug and alcohol use, fashion preferences and whether they have tattoos or piercings.

Members can e-mail existing friends or new ones whose pictures and profiles they find on the site, play games, start a blog and read blogs posted by others.

But the dark thoughts and anti-social attitude on the site attributed to Armstrong illustrate that while such sites seem disarmingly anonymous, they are anything but that, said J.A. Hitchcock of York, who writes and speaks on Internet safety issues.

"Kids that age, especially in high school . . . they think they know everything and they don't think that anything they post online is going to be used against them and that it's only going to be seen by their friends," said Hitchcock, who runs two Web sites devoted to stopping online abuse and stalking of children and teens.

When teens are reminded that the sites like MySpace are in a public place and are accessible even to nonmembers, it tends to make them more cautious, she said.

Hitchcock said the comments attributed to Armstrong should have raised a red flag, particularly the references to Eric Harris, one of the Columbine shooters, and comments such as "I hate this society and I hate most people within it."

The sites' owners aren't likely to closely monitor members' postings because such a job would be huge and raise concerns about free speech. However Hitchcock said MySpace and some of the other large social sites have a reputation for being responsive to complaints.

Hitchcock said that when she reported a user who was posting abusive and threatening comments about a young woman, MySpace was "really, really responsive. If somebody finds it and reports it, these Web sites will usually pull it."

But, she added, "until somebody complains, they're not going to do anything about it."

MySpace issued a statement Friday in response to questions about its policy on some of the comments on the site attributed to Armstrong.

Without referring directly to any postings, the company said it works closely with members, parents and law enforcement to deal with any problems.

"When public safety issues are brought to MySpace's attention, the company cooperates directly with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to swiftly and thoroughly address the issues," the statement said.

Parry Aftab, a New York-based lawyer and Web safety consultant, said schools, community members and parents can use Web sites such as MySpace to keep an eye on teens and young adults.

"It allows you to know if they go from being a risk to being an actual danger to themselves or others," she said.

However, Aftab cautioned parents against overreacting if they see something in a child's posting that disturbs them.

"We have to recognize that not everything on MySpace is true," said Aftab, who runs the nonprofit wiredsafety.org Web site. "Kids have lied for all time. They do that online, too. Just because they type it doesn't mean we should believe it."

USM's Heintz-Knowles said even parents whose children don't post disturbing messages on sites like MySpace need to be wary of allowing their kids too much time online.

"Teens as a market right now are particularly huge," and they don't consume conventional mass media - such as television, newspapers and magazines - as much as their parents. That makes an Internet site that attracts them particularly valuable, said Heintz- Knowles, who also has her own business, Children's Media Research and Consulting.

"It's a teen playground," she said. "There's a ton of advertising and with MySpace now being owned by Murdoch, there's a whole question of what kind of content people will have access to."

Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:

emurphy@pressherald.com

Source: Portland Press Herald

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