News Corp. has grand plans for MySpace

By Georg Szalai
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - While News Corp.'s recently acquired online community destination MySpace.com is thriving in its current form, the media giant already is devising plans to make the site even stickier and more profitable, possibly by acquiring so-called "Web 2.0" properties, enabling transactions between members and adding subscription offers.

"We're looking for technologies or feature sets that give users tools to participate in the media rather than just sit back," Ross Levinsohn, president of News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media unit, told the annual Bank of America Media, Telecommunications and Entertainment Conference here Thursday.

He said News Corp. could find a middle ground between traditional push media and user-generated content by providing the seed of an idea or a topic that online users react to.

"I'm really intrigued by some upstarts," Levinsohn said. "They don't cost an arm and a leg, and they have feature sets that could get us places faster."

Web 2.0 refers to online destinations with more advanced interactive capabilities that allow people to share and collaborate.

Levinsohn mentioned such firms as photo management and sharing site Flickr and video-sharing site YouTube as examples of Web 2.0 players he respects, but he didn't specify possible takeover targets. He also said News Corp. feels there are no major Web players out there that it really needs to own.

Asked about social-networking site Facebook, Levinsohn said that company would be too expensive. "We are certainly not paying $2 billion for Facebook," he said, adding that he would look at a deal at a more attractive price and he wasn't even sure the company really was for sale.

BusinessWeek reported on its Web site this week that Facebook has turned down a $750 million takeover offer in the hope of getting a $2 billion bid. A spokeswoman later denied the report and said Facebook had not put itself on the auction block.

The music space and a couple of other areas are where his team is looking for subscription opportunities on MySpace, Levinsohn said, pointing out that the site on average serves about 50 million music streams a day.

In addition, he said there is a business in "enabling (users) to trade, sell or swap" things.

Plus, recent research by his team found that 10,000-15,000 of the pages on MySpace are run by such businesses as club promoters, theaters and the like whose support he signaled could become a business for MySpace as well. "Over the next six months or so, we will focus on this business-to-business opportunity," he said.

On the advertising side, Levinsohn also sees additional upside. A recently formed custom solutions unit already is negotiating "some big, big deals" with major marketers to capture opportunities across all of Fox Interactive's online assets, the executive said.

Levinsohn also told investors Thursday that he expects to have an ad-search deal in place with one or several partners within the next 45 days or so. "We have spoken to everybody and feel we have a pretty significant opportunity here," he said.

Overall, Levinsohn said he sees MySpace and others as the "new new-media" elite compared to such "old new-media" players as Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.

Levinsohn also touted MySpace's recent efforts to improve its safety. The site has removed 200,000 "objectionable" profiles with hate speech and risque content, he said.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

MySpace Censors Content To Lure Marketers

by David Goetzl, Friday, Mar 31, 2006 6:00 AM EST
NEWS CORP. WANTS TO TURN Madison Avenue into "ItsSpace" and the media giant is aggressively courting blue-chip marketers for its most prized Internet asset.


Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, said yesterday the company is looking to broaden the advertising pool for MySpace.com to attract more "brand advertisers."

The pitch? Sounding much like MTV over the last two decades, Levinsohn said MySpace is the "number-one must buy" to "reach the youth of this country."

As it takes that case to major agencies, News Corp. is taking steps to bolster the ad environment on the social networking site. The infrastructure has been upgraded, accelerating page-loading time by 300 percent. Viral video and filmmaker sections have been added to bolster content offerings. And a deal to improve the search functionality is expected within the next 45 days.

But perhaps most importantly to advertisers, the company has added resources to monitor the site's mass of user-generated content. Advertisers have been reticent to experiment with MySpace since the content can be risqué and, in some cases, offensive. News Corp. now reviews 2 million images a day and has removed 200,000 profiles it felt included "questionable material." Still, Levinsohn said, the content is practically infinite with 66 million profiles, making it impossible to inspect it all.

"It's not for every advertiser, clearly," Levinsohn said.

News Corp. has also launched a "custom solutions team" to assist large advertisers who want to buy space across its Internet portfolio, which ranges from MySpace to FoxSports.com to AmericanIdol.com to gaming site IGN.com. The move could ignite ad buys on MySpace, since the sales force doing business with major advertisers for the Fox Sports or "American Idol" sites may be able to persuade them to experiment with MySpace.

Even as MySpace looks to entice the country's largest advertisers, the site already serves some 2 billion ads a day, though not always without kinks. "It's a challenge even for DoubleClick," said Levinsohn, referring to the site's back-end support provider. Such heavy volume and resulting slowdowns prompted the initiative to upgrade the infrastructure, which Levinsohn said is about 80 percent complete.

With MySpace essentially a canvas open for advertisers to fill with messages, Levinsohn said over time News Corp. may look to reduce inventory in order to "drive CPMs up."

Levinsohn made his comments during an appearance at a Bank of America investor conference in New York.

MySpace, acquired just last year, has become a News Corp. crown jewel. And it appears to be a strategic lodestar, driving the company controlled by 75-year-old Rupert Murdoch to focus on a younger demographic. "We're turning very much into a youth marketing company," Levinsohn said.

MySpace now ranked in top ten websites in the world

The recent purchase of MySpace by News Corp. has yet to show data proving Murdoch’s purchase will make a killing on the acquisition but MySpace is still exploding in popularity.

But as the Internet social networking site MySpace moves up from the 14th most popular site in the world to the eighth, Murdochs purchase is showing a lot of promise. The site has recently been named the second most popular on the Internet in terms of page views.

"It looks like the best acquisition we've made in a long, long time," chief operating officer of News Corp.' Peter Chernin told Fortune magazine. "MySpace is the single biggest growth opportunity this company has."Purchased for $580 million merely eight months ago, MySpace is looking like the purchase of the century.

Third Teen Girl Charged In MySpace Pornography Case

NORTH SMITHFIELD, R.I. -- A teenage girl has been charged with conspiracy in a child pornography case involving two other teenagers.

The 16-year-old from Lincoln was arrested and charged with conspiracy.

She's accused of taking explicit photos of two friends, Elizabeth Muller, 19, of North Smithfield and a 16-year-old girl from Lincoln whose name hasn't been released. The photos were later posted on their MySpace Web sites.

The name of the third girl, who was charged Wednesday, also has not been released.

The other two teens were arrested earlier this week and charged with child pornography.

Jump into your kids' MySpace; you'll learn a lot

Sam Faircloth

Date published: 3/31/2006


I believe the Web site MySpace, which seems to be gaining both popularity with teens and criticism from parents and the media, is not at all a negative influence on our children's lives ["MySpace cadets," March 19].

I have two teens of my own, and my wife and I monitor their MySpace sites regularly.

By embracing the unknown, my wife and I have the opportunity to look into our children's lives from a point that our parents never had. I can see who their closest friends are, as well as enemies. I know when things are going well in school, as well as when things are getting tough.

By following their extended friends network, we gain a wealth of information. This is where most people have a problem with the Web site.

I agree that it is a problem if you don't follow through on the information you receive. By that, I mean you have to talk with your children about what you have seen.

If you find something you're uncomfortable with, have them remove it. Talk to them about it.

Explain consequences for things said and done, and things left unsaid.

Teach them how to be discreet. Teach them that once they've put something out there either in print or online, it has lasting effects.

Tell them about the predators on the Internet, and make them aware of what could happen.

Perhaps if we had had the Internet when we were younger, we wouldn't have the problems with identity theft that plagues the adult community today.

My children know that I'm watching, and now the predators know that I'm watching them, too.

The Internet is not going to go away. It's here to stay, and growing by the day. Embrace it, and use it to your advantage.

Sam Faircloth
Spotsylvania

Date published: 3/31/2006

Police Nailed over Myspace.com Postings

Six police officers of Lexington, Kentucky, were charged after an internal investigation into postings and pictures placed on myspace.com. The postings were about details from work and some of the photos were of them in uniform.

Two of the officers were relieved of duty, but still remain on the payroll until the final outcome of the matter is decided. The other four officers will continue to work at their jobs, business as usual.

There is no current policy about what to do in such circumstances where police post information that leads to conduct unbecoming. As such, the policy is being revised.

Popular MySpace.com has its share of predators

Cristina Soresca began using MySpace.com last year when the Web site exploded in popularity. The South Tahoe High School senior communicated through the site with friends in Santa Cruz and Southern California.

Others use it for different reasons. Teenagers and young adults use the free Web site to forge connections that could lead to casual hook-ups. Discussions, even surveys, on drugs and alcohol take place. Sexual predators loom.

Soresca said she doesn't use the site as frequently as she has in the past. She knows of the benefits, like communication with friends, and dangers, such as solicitations from those with ill intentions.

"I'm sure if other parents knew what was on MySpace.com, they'd be a little concerned, but that's the Internet: Anything can pop up. It just depends what you do with it," Soresca said.



Forum for parents

St. Theresa Catholic School eased several parents' concerns on Web sites similar to MySpace.com with a Tuesday forum on Internet safety for children.

Hosted by a member of the Sacramento Valley High Tech Crime Task Force, school Principal Danette Winslow wanted an opportunity for parents to learn about the dangers of the Internet for teenagers and children.

A member of the Sacramento Valley High-Tech Crimes Task Force spoke on a program titled "Parents' Guide to Cyber Safe Kids" on who lurks in chatrooms, MySpace.com and other sites.
Tips include placing a computer in a highly-used area of the house, such as the kitchen or living room.

Parent Diane Yarrow, who has a 19-year-old daughter and two sons, 17 and 13, was astonished by the presentation, especially the information on MySpace.com.

"I just think it's a pedophile's, predator's, whatever's dream because there's so much information out there," she said.

"I was just so glad I went," she added.



Teens lack 'world' view

Davis police Detective Brent Buehring, a member of the task force, stresses to students that a part of Web addresses includes "world wide."

"They don't have a global view," he said. "They really don't think where these pictures are going."

Winslow said children surfing the Internet can easily click on pop-up links taking them to a place "where they aren't supposed to be."

And while parents can look over their child's shoulder during Internet use, once the adult leaves so does the supervision.

"It's not because we don't trust the kids, it's just that it's a temptation for them and they have too much access for too many things," said Winslow, who hopes to have another forum in the fall.

Concern has mounted on the national level. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently asked MySpace.com officials via a letter to provide software enabling parents to block the Web site, decrease the easiness of pornography and other requests.

South Shore schools use firewalls in not allowing students access to inappropriate Web sites.

MySpace.com has 55 million users worldwide. It allows people to easily build free Web sites with photos, interests, lists of friends, surveys and other items.

Purchased last year by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. for $580 million, the site's popularity has exploded. Frank Kovak, a teacher at South Tahoe High School who heads the yearbook class, said interest has been high enough that a page might be dedicated to the Web site.

"Obviously I endorse the idea of covering things that are on students' minds in the context of 'Is this something that is worth remembering?'" Kovac said.



Teen Web traffic climbing

In a study published in July of last year by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, found growing Internet traffic from teenagers.

"The number of teenagers using the Internet has grown 24 percent in the past four years and 87 percent of those between the ages of 12 and 17 are online," the report stated. "Compared to four years ago, teens' use of the Internet has intensified and broadened as they log on more often and do more things when they are online."

Another 2005 report from the organization detailed use of firewall protections for children whose parents don't want them on inappropriate Web sites.

"At the same time, parents are showing higher levels of vigilance about protecting their children online, there is striking consensus among parents and their teens that the teenage population is not as careful as it should be online and that teens do things online their parents don't know about," it stated.

Carly Strauss believes a "huge gap" exists between parents and their children on technology and Internet topics. Strauss, a counselor at Kingsbury Middle School, hinted all students at the small school know of MySpace.com.

Apart from the sexual predator issue, Strauss is irked by other characteristics on racy pages within the Web site. There are pictures of teenagers drinking or smoking or holding devices to ingest marijuana. There's also nudity. Since the site is used for social networking and is commonly used, Strauss referenced the amply opportunities for bullying.



Threats made

Two months go Carson High School Principal Sam Santillo requested vigilance from parents in supervising their children's use of MySpace.com after a student was threatened by another girl.

"We did not discipline anybody about that because it occurred off school grounds," Santillo told the Nevada Appeal. "We called everybody and said 'You need to be involved in what your children are doing' and that they could be using this a means to be disrespectful toward other girls."

Strauss said Kingsbury contacted an FBI agent to speak to school parents on Internet knowledge.

"It's totally one of those phenomenas you wouldn't have predicted," she said. "I think it can a be a very positive thing but it has taken a very negative spin."

Others agreed with the advantages provided by MySpace.com. A site search for Lake Tahoe Community College revealed a student rallying others to save the physics programs. Others listed advertisements for needing roommates and textbooks.

Buehring, a member of the high tech crimes task force, also noted the good qualities of MySpace.com and similar social-networking sites such as Friendster.com, Facebook.com and LiveJournal.com.

Soresca, the senior at South Tahoe High School, blocks unwanted messages from strangers. It helps her maintain her intention of communicating with friends on the Web site without interference.

"It depends on if you want to make it a negative place," she said.



Web alert

-- 81 percent of parents of online teens say that teens aren't careful enough when giving out information about themselves online and 79 percent of online teens agree with this.

-- 65 percent of all parents and 64 percent of all teens say that teens do things online that they wouldn't want their parents to know about.

-- Half of all teens and 57 percent of teens who use the Internet could be considered content creators by producing blogs or Web pages, posting original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations.

Source: 2005 reports from Pew Internet and American Life Project

Alloy: MySpace's Little Sister

By Tom Taulli
March 31, 2006

The MySpace phenomenon certainly demonstrates that there's an enormous business in the youth market. Unfortunately, another teen company, Alloy (Nasdaq: ALOY), isn't doing quite so spectacularly.

This week, Alloy reported its fourth-quarter results. Revenues increased only 3.3% to $43.2 million. During this time, the company posted a net loss of $23.8 million, or $2.01 per share, which compares to a loss the previous year of $73.8 million, or $6.88 per share. The major reasons for the loss were non-cash special charges, such as for asset impairments and reductions in goodwill because of less-than-successful acquisitions.

Yet the company was still able to generate free cash flow of $2.2 million during the fourth quarter. The company has $39.6 million in the bank.

Essentially, Alloy is a New Age marketing company that focuses on the Generation Y demographic, which includes 60 million boys and girls in the U.S. between the ages of 10 and 24. The company helps clients with marketing campaigns by using a variety of channels, such as direct mail catalogs, college and high school newspapers, websites, display media boards, college guides, and promotional events.

Ironically, Alloy missed the biggest phenomenon in its market: online social networking. Of course, the killer app is MySpace, which has a staggering number of monthly page views (23.5 billion) and could eventually exceed Yahoo!'s (Nasdaq: YHOO) base.

However, in late March, Alloy announced its purchase of Sconex, which is a social networking site focused on the high school market. During the past six months, there has been a threefold increase in visitors, although Alloy hasn't disclosed the user count. In fact, users spend an average of one hour per day on the site, which indicates that there's considerable value and stickiness there.

But so far, MySpace is still the place for social networking. Moreover, Alloy faces fierce competition from the likes of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Yahoo!, and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) as they all try to get a piece of this market. A small company like Alloy faces a huge challenge in building a successful social network site. But if Alloy can pull it off, its marketing channels could have much greater relevance -- along with a prominent distribution outlet.

Microsoft is a Motley Fool Inside Value pick. Take the newsletter dedicated to top-shelf stocks at bargain-basement prices for a 30-day free spin.

Fool contributor Tom Taulli does not own shares mentioned in this article.

MySpace Focuses on Teen Safety Fears

In an effort to calm fears concerning young users' safety, the networking website MySpace.com - which has over 66 million users and is growing rapidly among American teens with 250,000 new users signing up daily - has taken 200,000 "objectionable" profiles off of its website, reports the Financial Times.

According to Ross Levinsohn, head of the internet division of News Corp, some of the material removed contained "hate speech" or was "too risque."

"It's a problem that's endemic to the internet - not just MySpace," Levinsohn said. "The site, in the last two months, I think has become safer."

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp acquired the MySpace.com last year for $580,000 and has placed it at the centre of the company's internet strategy. A similar networking site targeting high school and college student, Facebook.com, recently turned down a $750,000 offer, hoping to sell for $2 billion.

As social networks like MySpace and Facebook experience more success, marketers are eager to capitalize on their advertising potential, but fear the lack of control over the sites' content. Some media buyers have avoided social networking sites for their major clients all together, not wanting to risk putting ads next to racy or offensive content like that MySpace has made an effort to remove.


Related topics: Buying, Demographics, E-Commerce, Entertainment, Interactive, Media Department, PR, Planning, Youth...

MySpace purge draws sharp reactions

With the deletion of 200,000 profiles, is the social network losing its cool? Plus: Lenovo probe stirs up PC makers.
By Owen Thomas, Business 2.0 Magazine online editor and Oliver Ryan, Fortune reporter
March 31, 2006: 12:34 PM EST


SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0) - When Friendster started deleting profiles it deemed risque or otherwise objectionable, users bolted for the exits, helping to boost rival social networks like MySpace. Could MySpace be making the same mistake? Author Nicholas Carr characterized a recent move to close 200,000 accounts as a "purge." Ross Levinsohn, head of MySpace parent News Corp.'s (Research) Internet division, said the move was motivated by concerns for teen safety. That's certainly credible given the spate or recent incidents in which adults have been arrested for soliciting sex from minors met on the site. But mainstream marketers' concerns about questionable content may just go just as far in explaining its recent reform campaign. And with 250,000 new accounts opened daily, the closures hardly seem large enough to slow MySpace's momentum.

Lenovo probe riles PC makers

An investigation into Chinese PC maker Lenovo is making waves in the computer industry. On Monday, the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission said that it was looking into a recently awarded contract to purchase 15,000 laptops and desktops from Lenovo for use in the State Department. The theory is that the Chinese government could apply pressure to the PC maker to have espionage devices installed in the machine. One small problem with that theory, DailyTech points out: The machines in question are being made in Taiwan, Mexico, and Raleigh, North Carolina, not in China. The probe is worrying Taiwanese suppliers, most of whom outsource their operations to China. Their thinking: If Lenovo, who's not making the machines in question in China, is getting probed, what's to stop the U.S. government from launching investigations which could scare away customers?

Smarter phones cut text-message costs

In Europe, wireless carriers charge an arm and a leg for text messages -- and even more for sending photos to your friends. So far, they've been able to get away with such high fees because they've kept tight control over their networks. But cell phones are getting smarter -- and so are consumers. Alarm:clock, a venture capital blog, reports that a new generation of European venture-backed startups are breaking the carriers' lock on messaging, using phones' data capabilities to route messages more cheaply off of the carriers' proprietary networks and over the public Internet. One startup's founder, Doug Richards of Cambridge, England -based Hotxt, calls his company "the Skype of text."

EarthLink rescues New Orleans Wi-Fi

Despite a Louisiana state law banning municipal-run wireless networks, New Orleans has been operating a citywide Wi-Fi network under emergency dispensation. A third of the city still lacks working phone lines, months after Hurricane Katrina struck, making Wi-Fi a lifeline for many residents. Despite the network's essential function, the city's chief information officer claimed that BellSouth (Research) was lobbying the state legislature to have the network shut down. With the prospect of a shutdown looming, EarthLink (Research) has stepped in to take over the network, making it legal. EarthLink plans to offer a slower, free service and a high-speed, paid service for about $20 a month. While helping storm-battered New Orleans may seem like a feel-good move, the Internet service provider has been pushing to roll out and manage Wi-Fi networks in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and other cities as a way to gain new subscribers.

Fox cleans up MySpace for advertisers

To try and quell fears from advertisers who might be reluctant to buy space on MySpace, Fox Interactive, which owns the social networking service, has begun instituting more thorough reviews of content users put on their profiles. Some marketers, who otherwise are anxious to gain exposure to the people who frequent MySpace, have been hesitant to do so over fears of attaching their messaging to content that is...well let's just say questionable. Because Fox is eager for those ad dollars they've not only upgraded the system to load pages faster but they're reviewing hundreds of thousands of images uploaded by users each day as well as the blog/profile pages themselves. So far Fox has removed about 200,000 profiles it felt contained objectionable material but that's just a fraction of the 66 million profiles on the service.

Like a MySpace cowboy

MySpace.com, the online community that's skyrocketed to popularity, isn't just for teens and aspiring rockers. It can also be a digital doughnut hut for police officers.

According to a report in Kentucky's Herald-Leader, a handful of Lexington police officers may be reprimanded for comments and photos posted to MySpace.com that deride gays and the mentally disabled.

One Lexington police officer even described himself in his MySpace profile by saying: "I love to lock a mother f----- up ...," according to the report.

That's certainly shooting from the hip.

Posted by Stefanie Olsen

Alloy: MySpace's Little Sister

Alloy is making changes, but MySpace.com is the company that found fortune in the teen market.

By Tom Taulli

Updated: 11:36 a.m. ET March 31, 2006
The MySpace phenomenon certainly demonstrates that there's an enormous business in the youth market. Unfortunately, another teen company, Alloy(Nasdaq: ALOY), isn't doing quite so spectacularly.

This week, Alloy reported its fourth-quarter results. Revenues increased only 3.3% to $43.2 million. During this time, the company posted a net loss of $23.8 million, or $2.01 per share, which compares to a loss the previous year of $73.8 million, or $6.88 per share. The major reasons for the loss were non-cash special charges, such as for asset impairments and reductions in goodwill because of less-than-successful acquisitions.

Yet the company was still able to generate free cash flow of $2.2 million during the fourth quarter. The company has $39.6 million in the bank.

Essentially, Alloy is a New Age marketing company that focuses on the Generation Y demographic, which includes 60 million boys and girls in the U.S. between the ages of 10 and 24. The company helps clients with marketing campaigns by using a variety of channels, such as direct mail catalogs, college and high school newspapers, websites, display media boards, college guides, and promotional events.

Ironically, Alloy missed the biggest phenomenon in its market: online social networking. Of course, the killer app is MySpace, which has a staggering number of monthly page views (23.5 billion) and could eventually exceed Yahoo!'s (Nasdaq: YHOO) base.

However, in late March, Alloy announced its purchase of Sconex, which is a social networking site focused on the high school market. During the past six months, there has been a threefold increase in visitors, although Alloy hasn't disclosed the user count. In fact, users spend an average of one hour per day on the site, which indicates that there's considerable value and stickiness there.

But so far, MySpace is still the place for social networking. Moreover, Alloy faces fierce competition from the likes of Google(Nasdaq: GOOG), Yahoo!, and Microsoft(Nasdaq: MSFT) as they all try to get a piece of this market. A small company like Alloy faces a huge challenge in building a successful social network site, but if it can pull it off, the company's marketing channels could have much greater relevance, along with a prominent distribution outlet.

Microsoft is a Motley Fool Inside Value pick. Take the newsletter dedicated to top-shelf stocks at bargain-basement prices for a 30-day free spin.

Fool contributor Tom Taulli does not own shares mentioned in this article.

MySpace growth continues amid criticism

Popular community site MySpace is signing up new members at record speed. But along with that growth, the site continues to be the target of controversy regarding the safety of its users, a core group of whom are minors.

MySpace, which has accumulated 67 million members since its launch in 2004, is currently growing by an average of 250,000 new members daily, said Dani Dudeck, a MySpace spokeswoman. That phenomenal growth rate has pushed its ranking among popular sites to a par with such notable players as Yahoo.

With that growth, however, MySpace has come under increasing scrutiny. Earlier this month, for example, two men were arrested in separate incidences for allegedly engaging in sexual contact with minors, whom they met through MySpace. One of the minors was 14 years old and the other was 11.

Ross Levinsohn, an executive with News Corp., which acquired MySpace last year , addressed the steps the site is taking to keep its younger members safe. According to press reports, Levinsohn, who was speaking Thursday before the Bank of America Media Telecommunications and Entertainment Conference in Los Angeles, noted that the site takes down offensive content, from nudity to racist material.

MySpace, which requires its members to be at least 14 years or older to use the site, also will remove user profiles that fail to adhere to its policy. Since its debut in 2004, MySpace has removed 250,000 profiles of underage users, Dudeck noted. Dudeck declined to disclose the total number of profiles that have been removed for violations of the company's policy.

Regardless, the number is likely to represent a fraction of MySpace's user base, said executives from rival community sites Friendster and Tribe Networks.

"We're probably taking down 1,000 to 2,000 a week," said Kent Lindstrom, president of Friendster. "Every community site has to deal with pornography, hate messages or violent content."

But if MySpace is wrestling with offensive or illegal materials more than competitors, it may have to do with two issues. First, said Lindstrom and Jan Gullett, chief executive of Tribe Networks, much of MySpace's trouble comes from the demographic it targets--the preteen and teenage groups, which often need more guidance about acceptable behavior. The second problem, said Lindstrom, is that MySpace adopted a hands-off approach to the site early in its evolution.

Such a policy fostered an "anything goes mentality" which created an atmosphere of permissiveness on the site, said Lindstrom.

"That goes a long way with teens and preteens," Lindstrom said. "We've always taken (policing the site) very carefully, perhaps to a fault. But on the other hand, the same kind of culture never developed on our site."

MySpace, however, contends that many of its users are much older than people realize.

"Nearly 80 percent of our members are 18 years or older, and that speaks for itself," Dudeck said.

She added that the company does not take a "hands-off approach" to its user base, pointing to its other ongoing efforts to keep younger members safe.

MySpace assigns roughly 90 employees, a third of its workforce, to the task of monitoring the safety and security of members, Dudeck said. Using search and algorithm technologies, MySpace employees will review information for such inconsistencies as claiming to be a 14-year-old member while putting information in a profile about a 7th grade teacher and class.

As a result of the site's research, members who are not 14 or older will have their profiles removed, she said. MySpace also limits the amount of information displayed on profiles posted by 14- to 16-year-old members. If those members want to let a person view their entire profile, they can accept the potential visitor's request for full access. But the individual who gains access to the full profile is prohibited from allowing others to view the profile, Dudeck said.

Myspace: Good or Bad?

by Miraya Berke

Does everyone that you know have a MYSPACE?

What is it about www.myspace.com that has gotten everyone in such a fuss?

There have been many stories of problems with Myspace. Fake Myspaces. Men pretending to be young boys and meeting young girl’s places. Friend drama. Gossip starting. Etc...

There are also plenty of good things about Myspace.

It is a wonderful place to chat with friends. People can figure out what their weekend plans are with friends, ask for homework help, and even discover fun new songs. Myspace originally was a dating service and is still used for that purpose. It is also possible to make friends with people from all over the world on Myspace. You can chat and compare how life is different in California than in England.

As long as people are responsible and smart about what they say and post on Myspace, then it is truly a harmless site. Myspace even offers an option to make your site private so only friends that you accept can view your pictures and comments.

If you are interested in joining in on the fun, go to www.myspace.com and just remember to be smart and stay safe!

MySpace.com users targets of malice

PORT CHARLOTTE -- When Jessica Koehler made her account on MySpace.com, she thought it was a good way to keep in touch with family and friends -- and to make a few new friends along the way.

She recently found out it was also a way for someone to hurt her.

Koehler filed a report with the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office Monday claiming someone had posted an unauthorized site on MySpace.com, using her personal information and photographs of her and her 2-year-old son.

MySpace.com is a free Web site that allows users to post personal information and photographs. It encourages "friends" to hook up to other people's sites. The site includes blogs, forums, e-mail, groups, games and events.

The fake site characterized Koehler as a bad mother whose family is like those seen on the Jerry Springer television show and someone who wants to sleep with older men.

"I got a text message on Friday asking if I had posted a new MySpace because there was one of me that said all kinds of bad things about me," Koehler said Tuesday.

The 20-year-old Port Charlotte woman was shocked when she went home and found the bogus Web site.

"The next hour or two, I got e-mail and phone calls about the site," she said.

The site even reveals where Koehler works and talks about the father of her son. She said she doesn't know who would do this to her, but suspects it has to be someone who knows her, since most of the information posted was personal.

Koehler's mother, Dawn, said she's concerned now for her daughter's safety. She makes sure someone escorts Dawn to and from work.

"There are just not enough laws in place for this kind of thing," Dawn said.

Sgt. Gary Ellsworth agrees with Dawn.

"The laws have not been kept up with the Internet," he said Tuesday. "Hopefully, one day it will."

Ellsworth said people have to use common sense when putting personal information on the Web and to be cautious, especially middle and high school children.

"We are seeing this more and more frequently here in Charlotte County," Ellsworth said. "It's a growing problem all over the country."

Officials at MySpace.com could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Koehler's report was not the only one of its kind filed with the CCSO on Monday.

Nicole Toth, 23, filed a similar report with the same deputy later in the day. Someone had taken her MySpace information, burned it onto CDs and has been leaving them in various places, even as far away as Sarasota Mall and a Venice gym.

"Someone called me and told me they found the CD at the Sarasota Mall, so I went to pick it up," she said. "Later, someone else called saying they found it at a gym in Venice and wanted to arrange somewhere for us to meet. I told them no."

Now Toth is also taking extra precautions at work, since her place of employment was also listed on the CD.

"I'm a waitress and I had to tell the hostess that if someone comes in looking for me, to tell them I don't work there anymore," she said.

Both Toth and Koehler said they are now nervous about placing personal information on the Internet, although Koehler said she isn't going to remove her real MySpace site.

"I'm going to block my profile though, so only friends can see it," she said.

Toth is planning to remove hers.

Ellsworth said while proving who posted the site or made the CD is a challenge, people should still report these incidents when they happen.

"While proving who sat behind the computer is hard in these cases, there are still laws against cyberstalking and harassment," he said. "We will work all

cases that come in, and if there is enough evidence, we will prosecute."

O'Reilly Investigates MySpace Owned By Rupert Murdoch

Reported by Deborah - March 30, 2006
There have been a lot of stories recently about sexual predators lurking and luring young girls on the internet site MySpace. Although an ideal story for Bill O'Reilly to cover, he has avoided it until tonight probably because it is owned by his boss Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp. Tonight O'Reilly had cultural anthropologist, Danah Boyd, on The Factor to talk about a recent incident on the site involving a teenage girl. He didn't mention News Corp' ownership of MySpace during the report or discuss recent news stories implicating the site. 3/30/06

A 16 year old girl posted some sexually explicit photos of herself on the site and she was discovered by police from her school which then led to her arrest. O'Reilly claimed that the " dopey kids give personal information" which could be dangerous and he thought the nude pictures could be a cry for help.

O'Reilly seemed to know nothing about the site and asked Boyd to explain it. She reported that 66 million teens use MySpace for social networking. There is no charge and you must be 14 to post on the site. Boyd claimed that messages from adults are usually deleted by the kids and added that although MySpace is used mostly to get dates in school some kids are trying to draw attention from adults. Danah Boyd pointed out that the teens would prefer hanging out in person but the parents won't allow them to go out because things have become to dangerous forcing them to rely on MySpace for their socialization.


comment: In February, when Conneticut had announced that MySpace was about to be investigated, I wondered if O'Reilly would make MySpace his next crusade. I don't think that's what is happening now. First of all, there is no way that O'Reilly doesn't know that Murdoch owns MySpace. That fact is the only thing keeping Bill from running with this story which has all the ingredients for an O'Reilly crusade. It will be interesting to see if O'Reilly will take this anywhere. It looked like tonight's segment was a combination of sex and damage control. Viewers could visualize those raunchy shots of a 16 year old blaming her instead of the site. Of course it could always be a way to promote MySpace.com. for Murdoch. Why stop at 66 million.

MySpace Helping Students Organize Walkouts

(CBS 11 News) It is well known that students are using popular internet sites to organize classroom walkouts that protest immigration legislation. School district workers knew this immediately. Students admit to using blog sites like MySpace to join together.

It appears to be a grassroots campaign lead by students, but many suspect that adults are behind the protests.

?They?re very good at text messaging. We really think that?s something that goes on,? said Mac Bernd, Superintendent of the Arlington Independent School District. ?We?re also quite sure there were adults outside student circles that probably, in some way or another, got this thing started.?

What some don?t realize is just how much the MySpace culture affects a student.

To see firsthand, go online and look for the number of hits the walkouts have received: 90,000 on ?immigration walkout? just in Texas.

Lori Varnell is a prosecutor and an expert on sites like MySpace. She says the website is like a telephone for this generation.

?They talk about their schools on MySpace. They talk about anything going on in their lives on MySpace. Raves, parties, whatever. It?s on there. That?s where they communicate,? said Varnell.

She continued, ?More so than the news or schools or anything else, those kids are getting their information from those blog rings. So, someone puts something on the blog ring and those kids just soak it up. So, it?s a great place to influence kids.?

There is little doubt that adult led groups fired up concern about immigration, but who was it?

There is really no way to tell, and those who are computer savvy can make certain that nobody ever finds out.

The internet works both ways though. Already, other MySpace bloggers are calling for protests against the protestors.

(CBS 11 News)

MySpace target of hybrid phishing scheme

Dan Kaplan 30 Mar 2006 22:44
Users of the immensely popular MySpace.com social networking website are being targeted in a new "hybrid" phishing scheme aimed at stealing their identity, one security firm warned today.

Researchers at the Maitland, Fla.,-based Aluria Software said today that scammers are posting malicious links on MySpace, which is among the top five most visited websites, according to traffic-ranker Alexa.

"When you're dealing with an entity that large, people with malicious intent come and try to exploit that technology," said Hiep Dang, Aluria's director of threat research and engineering. "It's just like email."

Users who double-click on the links – located on some of the profile pages of MySpace's more than 50 million members – are sent to a bogus site that resembles the real thing, Dang said.

The MySpace member then is prompted to re-enter login account information, then captured by the attackers, Dang said. The hope is their MySpace username and password is the same information they use to access sites where online transactions are made.

The fraudsters combine some other malware, such as a trojan or keylogger, to determine where else on the internet the user might enlist that same login information, Dang said.

"They could potentially use it in their bank account," he said.

A spokesperson from MySpace did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

The attack purposely targets an attractive demographic – young people with money to spend, said Sam Curry, vice president of CA security management.

"There's value to being able to influence a community and being able to tap into it," he said today. "People are not in immediate danger, but they shouldn't click things and assume they are safe."

The phishing scheme also is troubling because many employees use social networking sites while at work, potentially opening the door for their company's networks to be compromised, Dang said.

He said that after clicking on an unknown link, users should observe the address bar to ensure they are at a legitimate site. Also, they should report any phishing attempts to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, of which Aluria is a member.

Google recently named MySpace, with 47.3 million visitors at the end of last year, the top gainer for 2005. Launched in January 2004, MySpace was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. for $580 million last July. Industry analysts say MySpace now is valued much higher.

MySpace acts to calm teen safety fears

By Joshua Chaffin and Aline van Duyn in New York
Published: March 30 2006 20:26 | Last updated: March 30 2006 20:26

MySpace.com, the fast-growing community website hugely popular with American teens, has removed 200,000 “objectionable” profiles from its site as it steps up efforts to calm fears about the safety of the network for young users
The site, which allows users to create their own profiles with details of their interests that can be viewed and linked to by other MySpace.com “friends”, was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp last year and its phenomenal growth has placed it at the centre of the media company’s internet strategy.

Ross Levinsohn, head of News Corp’s internet division, said some of the material taken down contained “hate speech”. Some of it, he said, was “too risqué”.

“It’s a problem that’s endemic to the internet – not just MySpace,” Mr Levinsohn said. “The site, in the last two months, I think has become safer.”

With 66m users, and 250,000 new users signing up every day, MySpace has become one of the top internet destinations.

Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp, told the Financial Times that, although he and Mr Murdoch were very optimistic about its prospects when they acquired it last year, MySpace had exceeded their expectations.

“MySpace is more potent and powerful than even we knew,” Mr Chernin says. “And it is becoming a more integrated part of people’s lives.” However, as efforts grow to attract more advertisers to the site, News Corp is facing two challenges. Young users have to keep wanting to use the site, rather than switch to a “cooler” alternative.

Also, advertisers have to feel confident their reputation will not be tainted by “inappropriate” content. Teachers and parents are concerned that, because information on MySpace is publicly available, it might put teenagers in contact with predatory adults. In terms of retaining its appeal, Mr Chernin said users had to keep feeling the site was theirs. “We don’t want to change the fundamental look and feel of the site,” he said. “We do not want users to have any sense that it is corporatised.”

Dick Dale has a MySpace? Or, take MySpace with a grain of salt

By Marty Garza


MySpace — the online “create your own blog, send messages to friends and complete and utter waste of not only your time but everybody else’s as well” site — is becoming quite an addiction. You can’t really swing a stick in a public place without hitting someone who compares crack with MySpace, though one is a life-destroying drug that carries unspeakable consequences for all who indulge and the other just proves that the Internet works fast at lowering everybody’s threshold for amusement.

Though I am poking fun at the unbelievably easy-to-poke-fun-at MySpace, it does harbor a cool idea, which is to allow the 15-37 age bracket to really prove that most of them have the mentality of a 7-year-old on a sugar rush when it comes to the Internet. To clarify, that would consist of sending the most inane pieces of trash to random friends and family. That is not always the case, though I too act like an adolescent boy who’s sucked down a pound of Pixy Stix and has been given access to a keyboard and a high-speed Internet connection.

MySpace is actually used for networking affairs ranging from sharing music, art and short stories to exchanging ideas. (This also extends to nerds angrily expressing their views on how “Star Wars” is vastly superior to “Star Trek” when everyone knows that “Galaxy Quest,” starring television’s Tim Allen, trumps them all.)

Among all the cyber-trash that burns like a flaming hill of tires, there is always the chance of finding out that your favorite bands, celebrities and writers may have a MySpace. And, to break the hearts of these hopefuls, it’s more than likely a scam.

Don’t get me wrong — such local sonic enjoyment as Rebekah’s Tape, Egon’s Unicat, The Hong Kong Electric Company and The Dancing Nancies all have MySpace accounts that are not forgeries, but I’m sure that the deceased Kurt Cobain does not have a MySpace...and he is not from Norfolk, Ky. Same thing goes for Frank Sinatra, Louie Armstrong, Scott Bakula, Fidel Castro and many other fan-run or hilarious inside joke accounts do exist, and most are not intended to be taken as the artist’s actual MySpace.

Even Dick Dale, King of the Surf Guitar, has a few MySpace accounts under his belt, though his first album was released in 1962, and I really don’t see the man as having the interest to run a MySpace.

Then again, there are about 20 different accounts listed under Modest Mouse, a few under The Flaming Lips, plenty under Mars Volta, and there’s a good chance that they are either run by a fan club president, somebody who just wanted to share their favorite Modest Mouse song with the people looking to represent Modest Mouse on their own MySpace account or some hack from their record company.

Then there are the jerks who send worthless bulletins every 5 seconds, ranging from threats of never having a significant other if their letter is not sent to 20 people in 7 minutes, to the promise of finding a significant other if their letter is sent to 20 people in 7 minutes.

The only thing I love more than a chain letter is a pyramid scheme, and to have those both on the Internet makes me a happy camper.

MySpace should be taken with a grain of salt. It is stupid and worthless, but most fun things really are a complete waste of time. Unless you’re in a band that plugs MySpace in the middle of their set — for which I wish upon you to become even less talented than you already are — I suggest to you a new addiction to scurry you away from the crack you apparently know a lot about, since the analogy between MySpace and crack comes up in conversation way too often for comfort.

MySpace: Harmless amusement or dangerous pastime?

By Mary Friel


A majority of MySpace users are teenagers. And some of them are checking MySpace pages at school.

Mendota High School?s administration resorted to disciplining dozens of students for using MySpace during school hours. But even after being warned a number of times, students still feel the need to sign on to MySpace at school.

MySpace has become a problem for more than one reason.

Before disciplinary actions were taken, students were logging on to MySpace to chat with friends while class was in session. Lean Moiser, a computer programing and keyboarding teacher at Mendota High School, said, ?Internet usage logs are checked daily. Students found using school computers for non-educational activities are referred for discipline.?

But is that enough?

Most students with a MySpace page don?t think it?s a distraction from school.

Kevin Folty, 18, of Mendota and a senior at Mendota High School, has in fact said MySpace has become a distraction from his schoolwork.

?I have been in trouble for being on MySpace,? Folty said. ?I was on MySpace at school, and an image that was on my comments was accidentally transferred onto the desktop, and the computer administrator could not take the image off. I later showed him how to take the image off but still got in trouble.?

Folty also explained that since he got in trouble and can only be on the school?s computers with supervision, he now spends homework time on MySpace.

Students also tend to disregard the dangers associated with having a MySpace account. Adriana Sandaval, 18, of Mendota and a senior at Mendota High School said, ?I know there have been problems with MySpace. I think that kids shouldn?t put down personal information.?

In fact, to be eligible to have a MySpace account, all that is required is personal information.

?I don?t think it is safe for kids to be putting their personal information on display,? said Reagan Stevens, a Mendota High School teacher of classes that include keyboarding, computer literacy, consumer economics and accounting.

Stevens also stresses MySpace use is definitely not appropriate for use in school and is better off at home.

?Some very tragic events have occurred from innocent use of this site,? Moiser said.

MySpace has been a problem not only around this area but all over the United States. Just recently in California a number of students were expelled from school for being on MySpace during school hours. Actions were even taken to charge some students with a hate crime for comments made about a classmate on MySpace.

MySpace Is The Trojan Horse Of Internet Censorship

Media elite's last gasp effort to save crumbling empire

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com March 16 2006

MySpace isn't cool, it isn't hip and it isn't trendy. It represents a cyber trojan horse and the media elite's last gasp effort to reclaim control of the Internet and sink it with a stranglehold of regulation, control and censorship.

Since Rupert Murdoch's $580 Million acquisition of MySpace in July 2005, it has come from total obscurity to now being the 8th most visited website in the world, receiving half as many page hits as Google, despite the fact that on first appearance it looks like a 5-year-old's picture scrap and scribble book.

MySpace is the new mobile phone. If you don't have a MySpace account then you belong to some kind of culturally shunned underclass.

What most of the trendy wendy's remain blissfully unaware of is the fact that MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's battle axe for shaping a future Internet environment whereby electronic dissent, whether it be against corporations or government, will not tolerated and freedom of e-speech will cease to exist.

MySpace has been caught shutting down blogs critical of itself and other Murdoch owned companies. They even had the audacity to censor links to completely different websites when clicking through for MySpace. When 600 MySpace users complained, MySpace deleted the blog forum that the complaints were posted on. Taking their inspiration from Communist China, MySpace regularly uses blanket censorship to block out words like 'God'.

Earlier this week Rupert Murdoch sounded the death knell for conventional forms of media in stating that the media elite were losing their monopoly to the rapid and free spread of new communication technologies. Murdoch stressed the need to regain control of these outlets in order to prevent the establishment media empire from crumbling.



MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's trojan horse for destroying free speech on the Internet. It is a foundational keystone of the first wave of the state's backlash to the damage that a free and open Internet has done to their organs of propaganda. By firstly making it cool, trendy and culturally elite for millions to flock to establishment controlled Internet backbones like MySpace, Murdoch is preparing the groundwork for the day when it will stop being voluntary and become mandatory to use government and corporate monopoly controlled Internet hubs.

The end game is a system similar to or worse than China, whereby no websites even mildly critical of the government will be authorized.

The Pentagon admitted that they would engage in psychological warfare and cyber attacks on 'enemy' Internet websites in an attempt to shut them down. The fact that the NSA surveillance program spied on 5,000 Americans tells us that the enemy is the alternative media and that it will be targeted for elimination. Google has been ordered to turn over information about its users by a judge to the US government.

The second wave of destroying freedom of speech online will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website.

The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported, "Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out."



The original Internet will deliberately be subject to crash upon crash until it becomes a useless carcass of overpriced trash and its reputation will be defiled by the TV and media barons cashing in on the perfectly streamlined Internet 2, the free for all network that just requires you to thumbscan in order to log on! Those with a security grading below yellow on their national ID card will unfortunately be refused access. Websites that carry hate speech (ones that talk about government corruption) will be censored for the betterment of society.

For the aspiring dictator, the Internet is a dangerous tool that has been seized by the enemy. We have come a long way since 1969, when the ARPANET was created solely for US government use. The Internet is freedom's best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate the world under a global surveillance panopticon prison.

Rupert Murdoch's MySpace and its ceaseless promotion by the establishment media as the best thing since sliced bread is part of this movement. In saying all this we do encourage everyone to set up a MySpace account, but only if you're going to use it to bash MySpace, Rupert Murdoch and copy and paste this article right at the top of the page! See how long it is before your account is terminated.

MySpace Ban Changes

Instead of campus-wide, the ban may only affect 30 library computers.
by Nicole Curtis Hornet Local Editor

March 29, 2006

The LLRC is now asking to ban MySpace on the 30 research computers available to students instead of the campus-wide ban previously proposed.
Controversy surrounds the MySpace ban, as it is a question of infringement on free speech. At least one division, Humanities, voted against the campus-wide ban.

Now that the proposal has been changed to pertain only to the 30 research computers, many divisions will have to reconvene and discuss the pros and cons of the ban.

“I would support the practice and I think that the faculty would like to make sure that the research computers are being used appropriately,” said Claudia Stanger, member of the Humanities division.

The faculty senate meets on March 30 to vote on the ban.

News Corp. high on MySpace deal

By Frank Barnako, MarketWatch
Last Update: 10:48 AM ET Mar 30, 2006


WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- In the eight months since News Corp. acquired MySpace.com, the social networking site has become the second most popular on the Internet in terms of page views.
The purchase price for the three-year-old company was $580 million. A bargain, says News Corp.'s (NWS : news corp cl b
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NWS17.56, +0.07, +0.4%) Peter Chernin, chief operating officer. "It looks like the best acquisition we've made in a long, long time," he told Fortune magazine. "MySpace is the single biggest growth opportunity this company has."
There's been a lot of growth already. MySpace.com has nearly 66 million members, and adds a quarter million a day. The site is notoriously strong with Web users under the age of 20, which has led to concerns about its accessibility by young people and sexual predators.
Chernin said almost a third of MySpace's 280 employees work on online safety issues. He told Fortune the company is also experimenting with software aimed at identifying uploaded pictures with a high proportion of bare skin. "We need to be in a leadership position about protecting minors," Chernin said.
Net video use becoming routine
Research released by the Online Publishers Association said that 25% of Web users watch online video at least every week and that almost half do so each month. Watching videos online is becoming common, said the OPA. The study by Frank N. Magid Associates said two-thirds of respondents saw an online ad and nearly a third of them visited a related Web site and 8 percent made a purchase. While humor gets the buzz, news and current events are the most frequently viewed online video category, the study found.
Blog software makers add widgets
Developers of two popular blog services are making it easier for customers to include weather forecasts, job searches, and music players on their Web sites. Six Apart Inc. said it partnered with dozens of companies to offer 32 "widgets" or companion applications that can be easily added to TypePad blogs. Options include content from Weatherbug, e-commerce from CafePress, and search tools.
Automattic Inc., developer of the WordPress blog service, rolled out its versions of widgets about a month ago in test mode, and chose today to open for all to use. "On the surface, they're just things you can use to personalize your WordPress site without knowing HTML," the Wordpress blog explained. Its offerings allow bloggers to easily add links to services from Google (GOOG : google inc cl a
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Frank Barnako is a vice president of MarketWatch, and is based in Washington. He has owned shares of AOL Time Warner since 1995.

Google Gets Greedy

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz (TMFBreakerRick)
March 30, 2006

Just minutes after Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) tacked on $17.78 a share -- or 4.7% -- on Thursday, the dot-com headline hog squandered most of those gains by announcing a secondary stock offering of 5.3 million shares.

Bad move.

Google had already diluted investors back in September with a secondary offering. It closed out the year with $8 billion in cash, so it's not as if it needs the money. And with the $1.6 billion in cash flow it generated last year, it wasn't going to have to tap into its balance-sheet greenery to keep itself going.

Acquisitions can be a drain on a company's finances, but Google has been pretty quiet on that front. Beyond closing on its $1 billion purchase of a 5% stake in Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL.com this week, Google hasn't been stuffing any pinatas with blank checks. If anything, it has been suspiciously quiet as what would have been logical purchases of MySpace, Ask.com, iVillage (Nasdaq: IVIL), and Skype have gone to other companies.

There are still a few big-ticket content sites out there worth owning -- like recent Rule Breakers recommendations The Knot (Nasdaq: KNOT) and CNET Networks (Nasdaq: CNET) -- but that doesn't seem to be where Google is heading.

Thanks to the Fed and Google's buoyant share price, the secondary offering is unlikely to be dilutive to earnings in the near term. In the fourth quarter, Google generated $70 million in net interest income on its $8 billion cash balance -- an annualized yield of 3.5% that is likely to inch even higher here in 2006.

Based on last night's close and analyst estimates that are calling for Google to earn $8.82 a share this year, Google's trading at 45 times this year's bottom-line forecast. The company would have to earn an annualized yield of 2.2% or better after taxes on its new capital to make the offering accretive in 2006, which is likely. Unfortunately, the secondary offering doesn't look so rosy the further you step out of 2006.

This can all change if Google is serious about putting its money to good use. If the secondary offering is successful, Google's cash balance will balloon to $9 billion after accounting for the $1 billion that went out to Time Warner. Let's just hope that Google isn't simply building up its cash arsenal to match Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), because it will take several more secondary offerings for that to happen.

The one thing that truly bugs me about this offering -- beyond the timing -- is Google's ridiculous justification for the deal.

"This offering will partially meet the anticipated needs of index funds to purchase Google Class A common stock when Google is added to the S&P 500 Index at the close of trading on March 31, 2006," reads the press release.

Um, what happened to letting folks buy shares in the open market and allowing the interplay of supply and demand inch a stock's price higher? Wasn't that what drove the stock higher last week, when the company was officially invited to join the popular stock index?

Just know what you're doing, Google. This had better not be some ploy to squeeze an extra penny per share in interest income to satiate the analysts who were burned this past quarter. You'd better have a $9 billion plan. And I hope it's better than simply buying 1,500 bionic Steve Austins.

Microsoft is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation, and Time Warner is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick. Take any of our investing services for a free, 30-day trial.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a huge fan of Google, and it would be his homepage if it weren't for Fool.com taking up that piece of real estate. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.

MySpace and ‘choking game’

By Noah Farr
nfarr@seacoastonline.com


RYE - Amid periodic whispered exclamations of "Oh God" and "You gotta be kidding me," 20-plus Rye parents listened to a presentation on the dangers of Internet communication and a form of getting high known as "the choking game" among youth.
Wednesday night’s meeting was presented by Rye Police Officer Heather Porciello and singled out Web sites such as MySpace.com and the Instant Messenger program, which have become hugely popular with both children and teens in recent years.

"When they post themselves online, anybody can look at them," she told the gathering at Rye Junior High School. "And nobody knows who’s looking at them."

Porciello said sites such as MySpace.com, which essentially provide kids with their own Web page, are easy to access and easy to navigate, allowing anybody to view another person’s profile.

She said actions like sharing buddy lists, leaving detailed away messages and personal information such as eye color, age and cell phone numbers were all ways to attract unwanted attention.

"Kids just don’t know that there are that many predators out there," she said. "The anonymity is amazing."

That anonymity extends to law enforcement as well. Porciello said she monitors a group of almost 50 local kids.

Because everyone’s MySpace profile can be viewed by anyone else with a profile, she can sometimes determine where a party was or will be held.

She said she found a Portsmouth High Student who had taken his picture next to a marijuana plant he had been growing.

"It’s like walking a double-edged sword," said Jenny Galvin, a mother who attended the forum. "Kids want to talk to each other, and the reality is MySpace is here to stay."

Porciello said that keeping the computer in a room where a child’s activities can be easily monitored and talking to them about the dangers of the Web site were the best courses of action.

Also discussed was "the choking game," in which kids intentionally choke themselves in an effort to get a rush or "high" from the lack of oxygen that results.

Though Porciello said there have only been two deaths in the state since 2001, when she asked sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders if they had heard of it, nearly all of them raised their hands, and one-third knew someone who had tried it. "It’s happening here," she said.

Porciello said many kids think it’s a safe alternative to drugs, when in fact it is not.

Principal Jan Yorst said the game itself isn’t new - what’s new is the fact that many kids have become addicted to the feeling and are doing it at home by themselves with ropes and belts. "If they go and pass out, who is going to release the noose?" she asked.

"It’s not just your at-risk kids," added Porciello. "It’s your honor student. It’s your popular kids."

Alone on the web? Local teens face dangers on MySpace

By Dan Trudeau
STAFF WRITER


Alison Drzinski thought she had a pretty good grasp on her 12-year-old daughter's Internet usage. Drzinski keeps her family computer in the kitchen, and her children never surf the web without an adult hovering close by.

So when she found out what her daughter had concocted on MySpace.com, Drzinski was understandably shocked.

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After a little web snooping, the mother found a MySpace profile with personal information and fabricated info about her daughter's age.

"I just think the scariest thing is they have no idea putting all this stuff on the Internet could actually harm them," said Drzinski, who is the sister-in-law of Millennium Middle School Principal RJ Webber. "They're very, very naive."

In addition to false ages and personal information on her own daughter's web page, Drzinski found profanity, sexual material and provocative photos on the pages of her friends. The Dearborn mom moved quickly, contacting MySpace directly via a link on the bottom of the site's main page.

Within days her daughter's personal page — along with the pages created by her middle school friends — had all been removed. It gave Drzinski some comfort, but her overarching feeling was concern.

"Some of those girls were probably on there again the next day," she said.

South Lyon kids use MySpace
If such a thing can occur in Dearborn, it can — and does — happen in South Lyon as well, a fact which has local teachers, counselors and parents anxious about MySpace. A quick search of the site conducted by Herald staff members shows their anxiety is well-founded.

In approximately two hours, Herald reporters found the following examples of potentially dangerous behavior being carried out by area teens on MySpace.


Multiple students posted profanity and sexually explicit language.

A Millennium Middle School student claimed to be 19 years old on her page, saying that she loves to party.

A middle school student posted pictures of herself in tight clothing and provocative poses. She said she was 18 years old.

Two local girls — one 13 years old and the other 15 years old — exchanged phone numbers on a MySpace message board, where they can be viewed by anyone with a MySpace ID.

A South Lyon High School student posted his address on the site, advertising a party he was planning at his parent's house.

A 15-year-old girl admitted to stealing and drinking in the past month.

A pair of teens used the site to post negative — and potentially libelous, one local police officer said — statements about another classmate, saying the girl spread false rumors and calling her a "whore."
School officials show concern
It's that kind of thing that keeps Dottie Frazzini up at night. The Centennial Middle School guidance counselor said she gets terrified when she thinks of Centennial students being kidnapped or victimized by strangers they meet on MySpace.

The site has become a major concern for Internet safety experts, who say that sexual predators are trolling user pages for unsuspecting young girls and boys.

Frazzini said that some students protect their information by setting their MySpace pages as "private," meaning that only those whom they approve have the opportunity to view it.

Still, she said, far more students are willing to send their personal thoughts and information out into the ether, where it may be used to harm them.

And while most students use the site primarily to socialize with friends from school, Frazzini is concerned that many do not understand the risk.

"The kids love it. They're telling me they spend a lot of time on it," she said. "They're spontaneous to the moment. They don't look at the big picture. When you write on there that you're 18 and you're really 13, that's scary."

Other school administrators are showing concern as well. South Lyon High School principal Larry Jackson said he is arranging an assembly for students on MySpace, in addition to an informational session for parents in the coming months.

One father's (cop's) advice
Oakland County Sheriff's Sgt. Jeff Crockett has a web link on his computer desktop at work. It takes him directly to his son's MySpace page.

As commander of the Lyon Township sheriff's substation, Crockett has dealt with issues of identity theft and online security before. When his 17-year-old son put identifying information on his MySpace profile, it didn't take long before a red flag went up in Crockett's mind.

In addition to the potential danger of sexual predators, Crockett said MySpace could also be a treasure trove for identity thieves. Apart from senior citizens, young people are the biggest targets for identity theft, he said.

They're frequently trusting and won't obtain a background check on their credit for years. By putting addresses, phone numbers, names and other information up on MySpace, Crockett said teens are giving crooks a head start toward stealing their identities.

"Kids turn 18, they go to get a credit check and find out they have thousands in credit card debt," Crockett said.

Crockett instructed his own son to wipe any identifying information off of his MySpace page. As a further precaution, Crockett regularly visits his son's site and the sites of his friends to monitor their behavior.

And even though he's a senior in high school, Crockett said his son never surfs the web at home without his parents knowing it.

"My son's 18, and to this day he doesn't know the password to get on the Internet," Crockett said. "It's his mother's account and she has to sign him in to go on the Internet."

MySpace operates on a set of rules and regulations, but with hundreds of thousands of users on the site, violations frequently fall through. As a result, experts say teenage users can't count on the site to keep them safe. As usual, interested parents are often the first, last and best security measures.

Dan Trudeau is a reporter for the South Lyon Herald. Reach him at (248) 437-2011 or at dtrudeau@gannett.com.

Murdoch Will Earn A Payday From MySpace

Clem Chambers, ADVFN 03.30.06, 6:00 AM ET

NEW YORK - One of my favorite sites on the Internet is Amazon.com's little-known Alexa, a traffic-ranking site that finds out its data from a browser toolbar. This toolbar links up similar sites of interest for the user so if you went to, for example, “a pet site,” it would give you links to other popular pet sites as indicated by the behavior of other Alexa users.

The Alexa toolbar "phones home" traffic details to its servers so Alexa can keep track of site popularity and surfing habits. People get paranoid about this kind of thing because less ethical companies than Amazon (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) use this type of "phoning home" for spyware purposes like browser hijacking and pop-up serving. However, Alexa doesn’t go in for nasty tricks and is so useful to me that I won’t surf without it.

In return for this intelligence, Alexa makes Web site ranking data free on its site and produces what I find to be the most effective market intelligence on the Net. For obvious reasons, expensive market-research people hate this free service, but like many free products on the Web, it has outperformed expensive B2B equivalents. Well, thank you, Amazon. However, it is not Alexa that is exciting me right now; it’s an investment opportunity that it leads me to.

Of the top global sites in the Alexa rankings, six are U.S.-based. They are, in order, Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ), Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ), MSN from Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ), MySpace and Passport (again from Microsoft ). In terms of market cap, Yahoo!’s is $46 billion, Google’s is $115 billion and eBay’s is $56 billion. I leave Microsoft out of the picture because it is hard to say what part of its market cap can be attributed to its Web site properties, but one would expect that it would be a decent amount of its $280 billion market cap.

The reason I’m pulling up these numbers is that MySpace, the social networking site for 18- to 30-year-olds, is a peer, and while it’s not a pure play, market-listed Internet property, you would expect its worth to be somewhere in the region of its counterparts in the global top ten.

If this is the case, then its parent company, News Corp. (nyse: NWS - news - people ), is simply trading at the wrong price. News Corp. bought Intermix, owner of MySpace, last year for a mere $580 million, which in hindsight looks like the purchase of the century.

Contrary to its billing in the media, MySpace is not a "kids’ site," not unless you call 18- to 30-year-old kids. Instead, a quick surf around the site throws up the faces of the young demographic that advertisers so crave. The 18-30 crowd make MySpace its Internet home in the same way that the previous generation made AOL theirs. What is more rare is the fact that more women are on MySpace than men. MySpace is a Net phenomenon that is happening right now; the traffic graphs on Alexa show it all.

Having worked with AOL in a period when the company went from 1 million subscribers to 40 million, I find MySpace’s growth to be uncannily similar. Again, Amazon’s Alexa highlights what is going on. In recent weeks, MySpace has gone from the 14th most popular site in the world to eighth, a mighty jump in the World Wide Web space, where traffic is measured on logarithmic scales when absolute ranking is involved.

Of course, a viral social-networking service should grow exponentially, but when this kind of growth kicks in, valuations of the business involved must change just as fast.

News Corp. has a market cap of $53 billion, a figure that hasn’t changed much in two years. Its stock has traded in a channel between $15 and $19, and in a pattern that must have made "swing traders" good profits. In short, News Corp. has been going nowhere for two years. Does the market realize the implications of News Corp.’s purchase of MySpace?

Without MSN’s new site demographic tools, which are in beta and only available to advertisers, you wouldn’t know that more than 50% of MySpace users were female. And if you didn’t know about Alexa, you couldn’t tell that MySpace traffic was growing ballistically. So perhaps the market doesn’t know. That, however, is bound to change.

Detractors will say the site will be hard to monetize, but then they said that about search engines and, before that, about portals. News Corp. does $20 billion in sales from its fleet of world-class media properties and has been on a recent Internet buying binge, which would seem to be paying off magnificently. The MySpace purchase puts News Corp on the front grid of Internet companies, and this single stellar deal will soon earn the company a re-rating.

Even though News Corp. is no Internet darling, has no Silicon Valley headquarters and no train set running around Ruport Murdoch’s office, it has nonetheless vaulted the new-media abyss that so many established old-media companies are set to tumble into. In any event, there is no sign in News Corp.’s stock chart of the impact of its owning a global top ten Internet property. That surely is set to change.

Clem Chambers is CEO of stocks and investment Web site ADVFN. E-mail him at clemcham@advfn.com

Blumenthal: Parents' role crucial to kids' safety online

By Martin B. Cassidy
Staff Writer

Published March 30 2006


As MySpace.com and other social networking Web sites grow, tighter technological safeguards are needed to protect children, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said last night at a meeting in town.

But parents must keep tabs on the increasingly computer-savvy children to make sure they are using the site in a safe manner.

"Parents are the first line of defense against Internet predators and other online dangers," Blumenthal said.

Last night Blumenthal met with residents at the Greenwich YMCA as part of a statewide tour about his effort to get the site's owners to make changes, including weeding out links to pornography and developing software for parents to keep their children off the site.

Blumenthal has also asked News Corp., the site's owner, to raise the site's minimum user age from 14 to 16 and to enforce it.

Because News Corp. bought MySpace to rake in ever larger advertising dollars on the strength of its 63-million-member user base, it has an interest in policing it as well, Blumenthal said.

"They recognize that it's in their self-interest," Blumenthal said. "I don't think MySpace wants the bad stuff on its site, and they've had some push-back from advertisers who are worried about their image."

Weston Police Officer Matthew Brodacki, who conducts computer forensics investigations, also gave a quick demonstration of how parents can access MySpace and find their kid's profiles.

Brodacki said the site's open and public nature has police on edge, pointing to federal charges against two men for sleeping with teenage girls they met on the site.

Brodacki said many adults are under the false impression that MySpace's technology blocks people from viewing the pages of children under 16 without permission.

Brodacki showed parents preselected pages belonging to teenagers on MySpace to point out that they often include pertinent information such as ZIP codes that predators can use, and that young teenagers often lie about their age to get on the site.

In Weston, police arrested an adult MySpace user who went to a teenage girl's house, where she and friends were having a slumber party.

"They think they are completely anonymous, but they are not," Brodacki said.

But Brodacki advised parents that banning the technology might be counterproductive, prompting kids to set up pages on other similar sites.

Other changes Blumenthal wants to see MySpace make:

* Develop a system that prevents anyone under the age of 18 to view adult material.

* Banish porn merchants who repeatedly post links on the site to adult material, and stop those seeking casual sex on the site from speaking with minors.

* Hire an independent watchdog to monitor inappropriate material, sexual predators, and other problems on the site.

Town resident Lynn Kelly, the parent of a 16-year-old daughter, said after the talk that for her peace of mind she will insist on seeing her daughter's profile and making any needed changes.

"Before tonight I just made strong suggestions, but now I will have to make sure it's clean," Kelly said.

Nancy Risman, also of Greenwich, who has an 11-year-old daughter, said today's children are more computer savvy, which can be daunting for a parent who wishes to keep tabs on them.

Even with safety measures in the home, children can access inappropriate material and talk to dangerous people online at coffee shops and libraries, she said.

"Not to sound too 'Star Wars,' but this universe of the Internet has grown so rapidly that no matter what restrictions you put on children, they can do it if they want," Risman said. "It's an overwhelming issue."

Copyright © 2006, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.

Ky. police suspended over MySpace.com Web pages

Associated Press
Thursday, March 30, 2006 6:00 AM

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Two police officers were suspended and four others face disciplinary action after posting comments and photos on MySpace.com.
The comments included discussions about police work, including the recent arrest of country music singer John Michael Montgomery on DUI charges, and derogatory language about gays and the handicapped.

Police officers Joshua Cromer and Gene Hayes were "relieved of sworn duty with pay" pending the outcome of an investigation into Cromer's Web pages on MySpace.com, Lexington police said yesterday in a written statement.

Cromer was charged administratively with unbecoming conduct. Hayes faces an administrative charge of unbecoming conduct and intervention.

Three other officers face an administrative charge of unbecoming conduct. A fourth officer faces charges of public appearance and statements violations.

Several of the officers published comments on Cromer's MySpace.com Web pages. In some of the comments, officers wrote that they work for the "snobby people of Lexington" or the "Lexington Fayette Urban Communist Government." Many of the pages featured Lexington police badges or photos of the officers in uniform.

Montgomery was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in February. On Cromer's Web pages, officers discussed the case and congratulated Cromer on such a high-profile arrest. His Web pages also included an altered photograph -- posted by Haynes -- of Montgomery and a fan, in which Cromer's face had been placed on the body of the fan.

The police statement said the investigation is ongoing.

Job applicants' online musings get hard look

By Diane E. Lewis, Globe Staff | March 30, 2006

Lis Riba says she learned about indiscreet blogging the hard way.

In October 2002, after an interview for a job at a nonprofit, she said, someone at the organization read her blog, where she had broadcast to the world that she wasn't actually all that interested in the job and didn't plan to stay for even a year if she were hired.

No offer was forthcoming.

On a routine check of her server logs, she found that somebody from the nonprofit's site read her blog after her interview. ''I really believe I lost that job offer because of careless blogging," said Riba, 35, of Melrose. ''It was something I hadn't considered, and it taught me a lesson about discretion."

AdvertisementRiba, who now designs and writes software requirements for a Massachusetts company, hasn't stopped blogging, but she's developed a personal blogging policy, with rules such as not identifying her employer in online postings, not identifying colleagues, and not revealing proprietary information.

Employers hoping to gain insight into the character and personalities of job applicants are increasingly likely to peruse blogs, Google, and social sites such as MySpace.com and Friendster for clues about the applicants' likes, dislikes, and habits.

''For potential employees, it is not uncommon for senior executives to have a media search conducted that would include all public statements the individual has made," said Tal Moise, chief executive of VerifiedPerson, which performs online background checks for US employers. ``What the public needs to understand is that whenever information is in the general domain, assume it is not private."

Aware of the trend, college counselors are also advising students to watch what they say on social websites or post in blogs. The message: A suggestive photo, an obscene comment, or unsavory postings about one's private life could nix a job offer.

Catherine Amory, interim director of career services at Northeastern University, says she sent an e-mail to members of the class of 2006 earlier this month. The title? ''Digital dirt may hurt."

''It is a tricky issue, though," she said. ''I'm not so sure that students shouldn't be free to be themselves. On the other hand, if they intend to work for a conservative institution, then they need to be more careful."

Bill Wright-Swadel, director of career services at Harvard, said the university sent messages to students last fall telling them to be careful about the information they reveal about themselves online.

''Part of the reason was our conversations with employers who said they were using the information," said Swadel. ''Once we knew that, we felt we certainly had to talk to students and let them know."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a California-based digital-rights group, offers an online legal guide to students and employees who blog. Spokeswoman Rebecca Jeschke, pointed out that the First Amendment protects free speech, but some states go further. In Massachusetts, for example, there are laws that protect the speech of public school students, which includes all written expression.Continued...
But that doesn't mean bloggers should say whatever comes to mind under their real names. Instead, says Jeschke, they should protect themselves by using pseudonyms, posting anonymously, or requiring password protection to block unwanted visitors from their sites.

Many college students assume employers can't see their postings on Facebook.com because online profiles are available only to people with college or university e-mail accounts. But employers can work around that impediment. Rebecca Flynn, a senior at Northeastern, said she interned for a company that asked her to check out co-op applicants' profiles on Facebook.com.

''They would get resumes from a kid and I would go on Facebook.com for them," said Flynn, 22. ''I've been really careful about not putting anything inappropriate on that site."

Last year, Tina Mello, associate director of career services at Northeastern University, logged on to Facebook using her college e-mail address and checked the profiles of 17 of her 20 students.

''Some of them actually gave dorm information," she said. ''Most of them had benign pictures, nothing that raised red flags. But when I asked them, 'How many of you think this is private?' Almost half raised their hands. . . . They have the technical savvy, but they do not have work-world savvy."

Social networking sites could be immensely valuable to employers looking for the kind of detail they can't get from a resume or in an interview, said Bruce M. Sabin, director of Institutional Research and Effectiveness at Webber International University in Babson Park, Fla.

''The opportunity to glean the kind of information students willingly post on MySpace is a potential goldmine for employers," Sabin said in an online posting. ''Employers would probably not be impressed to find . . . students discussing their 'booty calls,' or posting self-portraits that could only be described as soft porn."

Michael Sciola, director of the Career Resource Center at Wesleyan University, said people who use social sites should understand that any information that appears online is there forever and cannot be deleted. Even material that is withdrawn from the Web is cached by search engines and Internet archives.

''These things have consequences," Sciola said. ''I don't know anyone who has not Googled their own name to see what comes back. Once you put stuff up, it is out there, and it is gone. You cannot get it back."

Natalie Gioella, a senior at Northeastern University, knows students who received offers for internships and co-op jobs, but were later turned down because of their postings on Facebook.com. So, Gioella, 23, doesn't post.

''Employers are looking," she said. ''They want to see what people do in their free time."

Diane E. Lewis can be reached at dlewis@globe.com.

Make sure kids' MySpace use isn't your nightmare

What the kids of today don't seem to understand is the Web is forever. That photo of them with their underwear on their head may be kinda funny to them today, but won't be all that amusing 10 years later at their Senate confirmation hearing or their job interview for law partner.
By James Derk

W ith all of the furor and hype going on about MySpace I think it is time to take a step back and give parents (and teens) a little perspective on what's going on here.

First, the basics -- MySpace is an interactive networking Web site with more than 65 million users. It's the fastest-growing site among young people in the world and is in the top three in the total Internet.



The goal is to put up a Web site all about you and your life then connect to a "network" of friends. Then you're interconnected with everyone they know and eventually you have a large spiderweb of buddies.

On the surface the idea is fine, but like most things it has become reflective of the worst of society. MySpace has been taken over by teens and young people ("tweens") who are putting up all manner of content about themselves on the sites. We're at a perfect storm here when it comes to issues like these.

First, kids now have access to digital cameras and can take photographs of themselves and their friends that never pass through the editors of my day, namely my parents and the photo lab. That means MySpace is full of risque photos, to put it politely.

What the kids of today don't seem to understand is the Web is forever. On the practical side, that photo of you with your underwear on your head using a beer bong may be kinda funny to you today, but won't be all that amusing 10 years later at your Senate confirmation hearing or your job interview for law partner.

Child advocate Nancy Willard said this:

"Teens are clearly using places like MySpace to establish social status. How do young males establish social status? By posting manly, daring images and information that demonstrate independence and bravery and by being listed as a friend on as many profiles of 'hot girls' as possible. And how do girls establish social status? By posting sexually provocative pictures and titillating information that attracts the attention and friendship links of manly guys. How does any teen attract attention? By posting hot, intimate information. The teens who are into playing these games are the ones who are most likely playing these games on places like MySpace."

Then there's the creep factor. I typed in my hometown in MySpace and found dozens of kids that I know in less than 10 minutes of browsing, including several that need to have a note dropped to their parents. And there have been numerous cases in the media of stalkers, pedophiles and rapists using MySpace.

What should you as a parent do, right now?

Take an hour, sign up for a fake MySpace account and browse your kids. Find out what is on their profiles. What could you, as a stranger, find out about your kid?

Then browse their friends and who is in their networks