The MySpace Era

1) Consider a website that you visit often, or one you visited once that made a strong impression upon you. What is the focal point of the site? What are some conventions of websites as a genre & how does the site adhere to them? Does the site alter these conventions in anyway? How so? Furthermore, how does the medium of blogging & other forms of web-based writing differ from that of traditional print/paper-based writing? Provide specific examples in your post. Hint: It might be helpful to insert a hyperlink to the site you write about.



If you were to ask any fifty students on campus if they were on MySpace, I would estimate that at least half, if not more, would answer that question with a “yes”.
MySpace.com has become one of the largest networking and blogging sites on the internet, with over one hundred and fifty million users. I am almost ashamed to say I am one of those users, and I find myself on MySpace almost everyday. The reason MySpace has become so immensely popular is because its whole reason for being is to connect us to people. We can network, message, comment, picture comment, instant message, or simply stalk people through a safe and risk free environment. MySpace is all about bringing people together, helping us find new friends and rediscover old friends.
MySpace adheres to the convention of letting the user customize the site to their liking by giving them the tools to create their own backgrounds and layouts, add their own personal pictures, and add any graphics or text they want to their own MySpace. The site is also easy to use from the home page because it has different categories, such as music, comedy, and videos, listed at the top of the page in tabs. I can always find what I am looking for on MySpace, and the site itself is easy to use because there are clear instructions everywhere on how to personalize your page and contact others. Simplicity makes MySpace available to all people, young and old.
MySpace offers a blog on your page, and blogging has become a much more popular way of expressing yourself on the internet. More and more people write down their most personal thoughts and feelings in a blog, hoping others will read it and hopefully comment, and providing insight into life’s most pressing questions. Or, they write funny stories and jokes, just to make others laugh. Regardless of the content, blogging has become a way to see what others think of us. Traditional writing, like in a private journal or just on paper, doesn’t allow for feedback from others unless stolen by your siblings and read aloud to embarrass you. I have a friend who is a faithful user of DeadJournal.com, and he gave me the URL so I could read what was going on in his life. He wrote some of the deepest and most personal entries, that I learned a whole new side of him. If not for the medium of blogging, I never would have heard those ideas or feelings from his own mouth. Another example is I, who doesn’t take blogging very serious too often. I usually post stupid jokes or lists, like Drunk Dialing Rules, or Nicknames. I once posted a deep thought, and no one responded like they did to my funny ones, so it was the last. My point is that blogging has changed what we keep personal and to ourselves. We seek the approval and advice of others through blogging, without the face to face confrontation or embarrassment. With paper based writing, we have to wait too long if we mail others, or we have to sit in front of the person and suffer that anguish. Blogging has given us freedom to be ourselves emotionally.