MySpace and the Growth in Online Social Networking

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It's been a while since we branched out from using the Web as an information highway to sharing our private selves with perfect strangers in chat rooms. Two years ago, on a shoestring budget, Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson created MySpace.com, which has grown into the second biggest log-in site in the US --- Yahoo is first, ahead of Google, CraigsList, MapQuest, eBay and Blogger.com. The wildly popular cyber meeting space is where people flirt, share music and poetry, and make friends. Last month alone, 37 million users, 25% of them under 18, visited the social-networking space to post pictures, video, artwork and opinions. While the 70 million visitors use the site without charge, MySpace-owner Rupert Murdoch earned $40 million in advertising revenue in 2005 and is predicted to triple that number this year. Diana Nyad guest hosts. Making News: Iran Says It's Moving Towards Large-Scale EnrichmentIn yesterday's televised celebration, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had reached a uranium-enrichment breakthrough. Experts reacted by saying the enrichment quantities are miniscule to date. Today, Iran announced it plans to move toward large-scale enrichment, employing some 54,000 centrifuges. Robert Einhorn served as Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation under Presidents Clinton and Bush.Reporter's Notebook: Flight 93 Tape Played at Moussaoui TrialIn the death-penalty trial against Zacarias Moussaoui, jurors have heard testimony from the attacks on the World Trade Center and the impact of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Today, prosecutors played the cockpit voice-recorder from Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field. The 30-minute recording had never been aired publicly before. Among the listeners was the New York Times' Jere Longman, author of Among the Heroes.
It's been a while since we branched out from using the Web as an information highway to sharing our private selves with perfect strangers in chat rooms. Two years ago, on a shoestring budget, Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson created MySpace.com, which has grown into the second biggest log-in site in the US --- Yahoo is first, ahead of Google, CraigsList, MapQuest, eBay and Blogger.com. The wildly popular cyber meeting space is where people flirt, share music and poetry, and make friends. Last month alone, 37 million users, 25% of them under 18, visited the social-networking space to post pictures, video, artwork and opinions. While the 70 million visitors use the site without charge, MySpace-owner Rupert Murdoch earned $40 million in advertising revenue in 2005 and is predicted to triple that number this year. Diana Nyad guest hosts.
  • Making News: Iran Says It's Moving Towards Large-Scale Enrichment
    In yesterday's televised celebration, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had reached a uranium-enrichment breakthrough. Experts reacted by saying the enrichment quantities are miniscule to date. Today, Iran announced it plans to move toward large-scale enrichment, employing some 54,000 centrifuges. Robert Einhorn served as Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation under Presidents Clinton and Bush.
  • Reporter's Notebook: Flight 93 Tape Played at Moussaoui Trial
    In the death-penalty trial against Zacarias Moussaoui, jurors have heard testimony from the attacks on the World Trade Center and the impact of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Today, prosecutors played the cockpit voice-recorder from Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field. The 30-minute recording had never been aired publicly before. Among the listeners was the New York Times' Jere Longman, author of Among the Heroes.
Guest host Diana Nyad, 2002 inductee into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, is a business sports columnist for Marketplace, senior sports correspondent for Fox News, and has hosted her own show on CNBC. She's also the author of three books.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran

MySpace

MySpace Founders Chris DeWolfe And Tom Anderson, Forbes' Q&A; with

'Life Online: Teens and Technology and the Life to Come,' Pew Internet & American Life Project

Dana Boyd's publications

Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School

Folksonomy

Verini's Vanity Fair article on MySpace

MacLaren's LA Youth article on MySpace and the law

Moussaoui trial, New York Times coverage of

Credits

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Warren Olney