Queen of MySpace Bashes MySpace
March 21, 2007 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under Computers
Tila Tequila, Queen of MySpace, speaks out against MySpace’s increasing widget restrictions.
“The reason why I am so bummed out about MySpace now is because recently they have been cutting down our freedom and taking away our rights slowly,” wrote Tila Tequila, a singer who is one of MySpace’s most popular and visible users, in a blog posting over the weekend. “MySpace will now only allow you to use ‘MySpace’ things.”
Ms. Tequila, born Tila Nguyen, has attracted attention by linking to more than 1.7 million friends on her MySpace page. To promote her first album, she recently added to her MySpace page a new music player and music store, called the Hoooka, created by Indie911, a Los Angeles-based start-up company.
Users listened to her music and played the accompanying videos 20,000 times over the weekend. But the Hoooka disappeared on Sunday after a MySpace founder, Tom Anderson, personally contacted Ms. Tequila to object, according to someone with direct knowledge of the dispute. She then vented her thoughts on her personal blog.
MySpace says that it will block these pieces of third-party software — also called widgets — when they lend themselves to violations of its terms of service, like the spread of pornography or copyrighted material. But it also objects to widgets that enable users to sell items or advertise without authorization, or without entering into a direct partnership with the company.
As for Ms. Tequila, who wrote on her blog that she was a personal friend of Mr. Anderson, the MySpace co-founder, she wrote that she felt bad about blasting the site but that she could not stay silent.
“You guys used to be so cool,” she wrote of MySpace. “Don’t turn into a corporate evil monster.”
Unfortunately, Ms. Tequila’s complaints fall on deaf ears. Fox, MySpace’s corporate parent, thinks they should’ve done more widget blocking sooner. In fact, they’re sharing the Viacom delusion and claiming credit for YouTube’s growth.
“We probably should have stopped YouTube,” Michael Barrett, chief revenue officer for Fox Interactive Media, a part of the News Corporation, said in an interview in late February. “YouTube wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for MySpace. We’ve created companies on our back.”
Uh, yeah, MySpace did support other businesses. So does Google. The difference is, Google knows that’s a good thing.
Steve O’Hear sees the fall of Friendster repeating itself.
Back in the days when Friendster was the social networking destination of choice, MySpace — then a cheeky young upstart — promoted itself as a different kind of social network, where users were free to engage in commercial activity, and could pimp out their profiles at will. Many users of Friendster had become disgruntled with restrictions imposed on the site, which if they violated, often resulted in having their accounts closed, and so were very willing to embrace the new kid on the block and to encourage others to do the same.
…if MySpace continues to block popular third-party widgets then I think it runs the risk of alienating users, and, ultimately, damaging its own interests.
Fred Wilson chalks it up to Fox’s command-and-control thinking.
“Every attempt everyone has ever made to try to dictate what a person’s Internet experience will be has ended up coming up empty,” he said. “You have to accept the fact that you are never going to be the be-all and end-all of everyone’s experience. They are one click away from everyone else on the Web.”
Despite the annoying autoplay audio widgets users often posted, the ability to easily pimp profiles with widgets allowed people to truly make MySpace “my” space. Fox has clearly lost sight of its acquisition’s original competitive advantage. While 2007 is the year of the widget, Fox still wishes for the portal days of 2000 — and we all know what happened around this time in 2000. Fox took a company perfectly positioned for this year, and crashed it seven years into the past.
No wonder Pete Cashmore calls MySpace evil: mammals chained to dinosaurs will not survive in the emerging Earth. The only good I can see coming out of this is hot babes getting their sexy butts off MySpace and building out their own personal sites, probably using the same widgets MySpace is restricting. That should add some sex appeal to the fall of closed social networking and the rise of personal publishing.
By the way, Tom is not my friend. He’s been so uncool since he started working for that Rupert guy.
(Via Randy.)
Get me in touch with Tila!! I want to get her blipd!!!! She’ll make HISTORY. I can already show her the way to utopia =)
Man, you have all them hot ladies as your friends and not Tom?!? zomg.
Is it just me though, or are all your MySpack comments from spammers?
I say screw MySpack.
Just goes to show how rarely I visit MySpace. Comments cleaned. Thanks for the heads-up!
MySpace is retarded. It has been since the very beginning. Now it’s retarded and corporate.
there’s no reason myspace couldn’t disappear just as quickly as it’s risen. it’s a shame they don’t value their user base they have as much as they could.