MySpace

Barely four years old, MySpace is the undisputed giant of the social networking world. Two hundred million people world-wide host pages on what alexa.com considers the sixth-most visted website on the Internet.

The freedom to express yourself is one of the draws. MySpace users can fiddle with the code, decorate their site with patterns and colors, post photos, animations, videos, and music. This is either wonderful or hideous -- depending on your tastes.

The social networking that goes on between the pages, however, is what attracts people the most. You can connect with friends, friends of friends, and anyone else in the gargantuan MySpace universe. (Did I mention there are 1/5 billion people here?) People collect "friends" and carry on conversations in public or private.

Much more could be said about MySpace -- both good and bad -- but anything with 200 million members is much too big to simply ignore. It is a global meeting place. Do you have an address there?

Susan and I hope you enjoyed this morning's class. Please leave us a note in the comments for this posting and tell your classmates what site you just created. Then it's your turn to participate in the social web.