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It's one of the most recognisable brands on the internet, it's owned by News Corporation, and it's home to thousands of emo kids all wanting to tell you how unique they are. It is, of course, MySpace.com.

MySpace is a social networking site, giving users the chance to create a profile and interact with friends, bands, and people they've never met. Users can post pictures of themselves, write to a blog, and post comments or messages for other users. None of this needs much explaining; with over 106 million accounts already created, MySpace doesn't need anything in the way of introduction.

The surprise has been how fast MySpace has grown to that size. Like an obese American stuffing themself with burgers, MySpace has rapidly become huge, and it's still growing, with an estimated 230,000 new accounts created every day. MySpace holds 80% of the social networking market share, putting it far above competing sites such as Xanga.

Yet the site itself is nothing that hasn't been done better elsewhere. The coding is flawed and has been the subject of numerous attacks designed to breach security, some for more malicious reasons than others. The basic layouts, although customisable by users, are simply ugly, and to get through a day without seeing the 'an unexpected error has occured' message is rare. MySpace philosophers enjoy pondering whether an 'unexpected error' that happen so frequently is really unexpected at all.

It's clear that MySpace has become so big on the basis of referrals. People invite their friends, because having a lot of friends listed in a user's profile is considered a status symbol. This may be where other networking sites missed out; most of the previously big name brands did not have such an emphasis on friends and interaction between users. Commenting on blogs was about the most that had previously been offered, but when the target audience is kids who want to tell you the music they listen to while cutting themselves, attracting people to read hosted blogs can be difficult. Most people would rather tell you about themself, and MySpace provides plenty of tools to allow users to do just that. Any user can post a bulletin, which appeares on a bulletin board for everyone is their friend list to see, in addition to commenting on blog entires and even on the user themself.

I mentioned it in passing already, but MySpace layouts are ugly, even after customisation. If, as a guest, you visit someone's profile for the first time, you may be surprised at how cluttered the page is. Everything is on the front page, including their friend list that you don't care about, comments that you don't need to read, and of course a music player, just in case the loading times were too fast for you. Yes, while you're reading about someone's lovelife, you can lsiten to the very same music they cut themselves to. Commenting, as if it wasn't already a useless thing to show guests, is split between profiles in a way that only the most schitzophrenic person can find readable. If Person A posts a comment on Person B's profile, Person B continues the conversation by posting a comment back at Person A's profile. Confused? It's all about getting people to see your own profile. It also makes it completely pointless for commenting to be displayed publically, as following a conversation is almost impossible for anyone not involved in it.

In summary there isn't much to say. Any review of a site the size of MySpace is almost irrelevant, but it's undeniable that social networking has become big business. All credit to MySpace for becoming so huge... if only they could have done it with a little more style.

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