I was visiting a childhood friend, Ross, whom I had not seen in years, when I slinked off the couch to check my Myspace account last summer.
Guitartist Stephen Carpenter's band, Deftones, have a Myspace profile."Steve, you're on Myspace?" Ross said as he peered over my shoulder. "What the hell happened to you?"
Ross had a point. What prompted me to register for an account?
"I started it to stay in touch with friends from Colorado," I said. Ross shot me a scornful glance; he was not convinced of the site's utility. I suppose I am.
Myspace offers much more than just a way to keep up with friends. Bands release their albums on their profiles before they go on sale in stores, scoop the music media by posting tour dates in advance and feature original content, such as b-sides and rarities.
It's easy, too. I don't waste my time doing keyword searches on Google for each band anymore  now the information finds me. All I have to do is befriend the band and they post on my profile RSS-like bulletins about upcoming album releases, new singles and concert ticket sale dates. (No, Rupert Murdoch did not pay me to write this.)
I will probably grow bored of it, but I'm surprised it has kept my attention for this long. I'm not alone. Myspace consistently ranks among the most frequently visited sites on the Internet.
So what the hell happened to us? I never asked for or sought a Web site that would make some tasks a bit easier. It just happened.
But by my own freewill, I chose to spend my time on Myspace instead of on other social networking sites. Many others did, too. Myspace really shows the Internet's potential for explosive growth: Do it right and it will spread like the plague.
And there are some who think it is just that: the plague. And we may get a dose of it's deadly effects even if we don't go there.
I think you make a great point about the utility of MySpace, how the information finds you instead of you finding it. In terms of bands, it seems to work well. But, as we discussed in class today, I think there's a dark side to this, too.