One of our primary recommendations for parents who are concerned about the safety of their teens on MySpace is that the parents get their own MySpace account. We have now started a site on MySpace.com that will help people who may have questions about how to set up their MySpace profile.
In this project, we're working with O'Reilly Media, which has provided us with a set of books describing web technology, image editing, flash animation, and other technologies that are relevant to MySpace users and people who are active on the Web.
If you have questions about configuring your MySpace profile, or other web technology related questions, please visit us on MySpace at www.MySpace.com/OreillyMedia.
If you'd prefer to go straight to the blog (where the technology articles are being posted) go to Blog.MySpace.com/OreillyMedia.
Come 'friend' us on MySpace and subscribe to the blog if you're interested in finding out how to make your MySpace profile as 'cool' as any teen's profile.
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Wesley Fryer, in his Moving at the Speed of Creativity blog, wrote an interesting post about a new social networking related web service named "Meetro." Meetro promises to
"Let your friends know where you are by placing the badge on your myspace page, blog, or even your email signature... You know where you are, but does the rest of the world? Let 'em know! Enter your Meetro screenname in the box below and click the button to generate the HTML code needed for your blog, e-mail signature or Myspace page. The badge will display your current location or your last known where-abouts."
Our book, MySpace Safety: 51 Tips, has as its primary objective teaching parents and teens how to use MySpace.com safely. One of our major points (echoed elsewhere by more well-known Internet safety experts) is that in order for teens to maintain safety while using MySpace, care must be taken to disassociate the teen’s online presentation of themselves and location-specific information (such as where they live, zip code, what school they attend, etc.). A great many of our safety tips are precisely about how to do this within MySpace.
Meetro completely undoes everything most Internet safety experts advise for keeping teens safe from predators. Every neighborhood has people you’d never want your child to have contact with (just look at published sex offender registries if you have doubts). The last thing we need is a means for them to pinpoint which nearby teens are at home alone every afternoon.
An application like Meetro is fine for adults, but it significantly increases the risk to teens and children who are active online.
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As of today, more than 100 Million people have joined MySpace.com. Tonight, MySpace is reporting 100,215,277 members in its extended network.
While 100 Million people have joined MySpace, only about half of MySpace's members log into the site in a given month. Still, with about 50 Million "active" members, MySpace continues to be a very busy place on the Internet.
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