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MySpace officially launches instant messaging service

MySpace has announced the official beta release of its MySpaceIM instant messaging service which soft-launched informally a year ago. According to a release from MySpace, over 17 million of the social networking site's 180 million members worldwide have installed the downloadable client.

MySpace, which was acquired by News Corp. in 2005, used to operate a browser-based instant messaging service, which it has since phased out.

The MySpaceIM service competes with other ubiquitous and well-established instant messaging clients, like Yahoo Instant Messenger, Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger, and the formidable AOL Instant Messenger. But MySpaceIM hopes to set itself apart … Read more

Report: News Corp. to trade MySpace for a stake in Yahoo?

Here's a rumor we didn't see coming. The U.K.'s The Times is reporting that News Corp., the Rupert Murdoch-helmed company that purchased MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, may be willing to trade it. According to Times writer Dan Sabbagh's article, News Corp. is mulling a swap of MySpace to Yahoo in exchange for a 25 percent stake in the dot-com.

Interestingly enough, The Times is itself owned by News Corp. The parent company is allegedly "interested in a deal even if it means losing some control of MySpace because it would give the … Read more

MySpace and the subtlety of promotion

If you're a musician with a computer and a Web connection, it's a fair bet you've got a MySpace page. The social networking site claims to have its origins in the lower reaches of the L.A. music community (although some writers dispute the official history of the site).

MySpace may be too common to be cool, but it's also too easy to pass up: create a profile, build a list of artists and fans who appreciate your genre and/or live in your location, and advertise your shows and recordings for sale. No longer do … Read more

My Yahoo

Category: Browsing

My Yahoo is a customizable start page that users can fill with a variety of personalized content feeds. Like some other single-page aggregators, My Yahoo centers around its directory, which is filled with all sorts of feeds--some from third-party sources, while others are in-house Yahoo content. Users can mix and match, move things around, and custom tailor their page however they please.

In addition to content, users can also pick from a wide variety of themes to decorate their page. Each of these themes can be customized, down to color and font as well.

Web site: My.Yahoo.com… Read more

MySpace

Category: Community

MySpace is one of the most well-recognized social networks in the world. It's also one of the most trafficked on the Internet. The service originally started as a social network for music enthusiasts, and as a place where bands could promote their upcoming concerts or albums.

The main draw to the service is its user profiles, which are completely customizable by editing some code in the settings. Because of this capability, many sites and services have sprung up, offering various add-ons that require no coding knowledge for the end user. Users can communicate with one another via … Read more

MySQL does not scale

Well, not very much. I mean, who wants to only scale to hundreds of millions of page views?

Aside from Oracle, that is? ;-)

As Tim notes, MySQL is in the middle of its "12 Days of Scale-out," which is designed to show how MySQL, that little database that could, is delivering monster-sized performance for some of the biggest names on the planet.

Like Wikipedia, for example, which uses MySQL to service:

More than 154 million annual visitors More than 5 million articles More than 290,000 contributors Nearly half a million edits each day 25,000 SQL … Read more

MySpace vs. Facebook (the video)

Following Facebook's launch of its application platform last week, we decided it was high time to explore the delicate balance that exists between it and social-networking juggernaut MySpace. And what better way to compare and contrast than a Get a Mac parody video? Sure, at this point it's about as passe as those Mastercard commercials, but somehow seeing our own Tim Moynihan dressed up like he got in fisticuffs with a lost-and-found bin makes it all worthwhile.

For more background on the things mentioned in this video read these stories:

Facebook opens up: The Feed's the thing … Read more

Gizmoz launches personalized avatar service

Tonight Gizmoz is launching an upgrade to its service that brings photo face-mapping technology to user avatars. Originally the service allowed users to add voice clips to various pre-existing characters, including celebrities, inanimate objects, and house pets. With this new technology, users can upload a photo of themselves and the service will automatically map their face to a moving, talking character.

Once user faces have been mapped, the service takes on a look and feel a little similar to that of Meez [review] with a build-it-yourself creation tool. Users can adorn their avatar in all sorts of clothing and hairstyle … Read more

Facebook platform: five apps you'll use again and again

Regular Webware readers who have been playing around with Facebook's new platform will likely recognize many of the sites and services that are offering their own applications. At almost 90 apps (and growing), there are a lot to choose from. After spending the better part of a day experimenting with many of them, I've chosen five of my personal favorites that I think people are bound to use, and come back to in the long haul because they're useful, and that's ultimately what makes repeat users.

Note: The bold links below won't take you right … Read more