by Lynette Alice

Created on: April 19, 2008

MySpace is good for what it was created for which is social networking. As a tool for a business or nonprofit organization however it is less than effective. In fact it is almost a negative when it comes to networking for a nonprofit.

MySpace is free and has users worldwide which seems like it would be appealing to any nonprofit, after all the old saying goes "Any publicity is good publicity." In this case however it just isn't so. The reasons MySpace is ineffective are as follows and make more than reasonable sense.

Primarily MySpace is used for one of two things, either keeping up with old friends or networking to attempt to find new friends. These networking attempts to find new people generally occur via blind emails from someone that has seen your profile and are often ignored. Initially new users may want to actually read everything they receive, but within a month or two burnout sets in and unknown users are often deleted without so much as being read or having a profile view. Furthermore MySpace is a spammers heaven. Generic form emails are pasted and blasted to thousands of users. Assuming these are even opened, the generic feel these have often leads to them being deleted before fully read, the sender being blocked from further contact, and also reported as spam often.

With all this spam, constant problems with hackers trying to surreptitiously gain access to peoples accounts, and every musician/comedian/struggling model/thespian/etc... constantly sending messages to visit their "Official" website, download their performances, or whatever it is, people become very jaded and suspicious of such contact as well they should be. Due to all of this almost every unknown contact is viewed as a potential threat at worst, or nuisance at the least. Anyone that has used MySpace for awhile knows perfectly well many emails come in claiming to be from one entity and wind up being something totally different.

MySpace is also rife with pretenders and scam artists. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know Paris Hilton doesn't have over three hundred accounts and desperately wants to be your friend out of the blue. There are unfortunately people that fall for this though. There are likewise people that contact you to visit their website for any number of reasons from "Click to fund mammograms" to "Enter to win (Whatever it is they claim to offer) at (Insert any web address)free of charge." Most don't fall for this but some do and wind up with all kinds of little nasties placed on their computer, or sometimes even give out identifying information to "Confirm" where their winnings should be sent. Therefore you can see with so much dishonesty on MySpace even legitimate entities have an uphill battle to fight to be trusted as valid.

With it fairly obvious now that it is hard to gain access to people that may be willing to help due to issues concerning spam burnout, dishonesty on the site being rampant, and trust issues, how is MySpace really worth the effort and time for a legitimate nonprofit to make use of? Even if it is used for the sole purpose of trying to drive traffic to another site, it is unlikely the opportunity cost is worth it, and it raises questions as to whether someone would really want to support such an organization. In the final analysis MySpace may be the place for friends, but it is not the place for a nonprofit.

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