MySpace has more than 100 million active users. For many of them, MySpace is their central hub for connecting and communicating. They come to meet new people, keep up to date with family members, learn about new products and services, or catch up on the latest news. They come to check out blogs or to share their music. Don’t you just love the MySpace community?
What — you don’t have a MySpace page yet? Well, we can fix that!
Whether you’ve just decided to join MySpace, need to give your profile more pizzazz, or simply want to find out as much about MySpace as your teenager already knows, MySpace For Dummies, Second Edition has what you’re looking for. Find out how to get started, use MySpace safely, customize your page, start a blog, showcase yourskills, and lots more. This friendly guide will help you:
Open an account and set up your profile
Turn on and use the MySpace safety and security tools
Find and add friends to your profile
Stay in touch by e-mail, bulletins, and profile comments
Sell, buy, and market on MySpace
Show off your talents as a filmmaker, author, comic, or musician
Upgrade your profile with photos, music, and a whole new look
Everything’s arranged tohelp you quickly find what you’re looking for. With MySpace For Dummies, Second Edition, you can easily make your MySpace experience truly exceptional!
REVIEW
Yuspie Digs this Book! OK, I'm an old 30 something fogey - but Hup knows net! He's the bomb of social networking, hence, the master of MySpace. Long live the kings of social networking!
There are over 90 million profiles on MySpace. How do you make yours stand out? You use these programming tricks and techniques to tweak the look, feel, and content of your profile. You get the inside scoop on hot design and photography. You maximize the effects of HTML and CSS. And, if you happen to be a musician, you check out Chapter 30 to see how MySpace can launch your career. It's all in here. What are you waiting for? Make it all about you.
Complete code and instructions for these and more MySpace hacks:
Embedding graphics
Creating animated images
Developing your own background
Building custom cursors
Changing profile text styles
Getting kinky with links
Adding a comments box
Altering your contact table
Redesigning the navigation bar
Making DIV overlays
A companion Web site provides even more tricks and techniques.
Visit www.myspaceismyplace.com to find all code from this book, links to software and featured profiles, a reader forum, and more.
REVIEW
Great book for getting the job done. I wish I had found this book sooner. I'd spent at least a week surfing the Internet to find more information on how to really tailor MySpace, and this book would have saved me a lotof time. It's appropriate for people who are new to html and CSS, as well as experienced coders who just want to know how MySpace pages are set up and what's unique about the way they did things. Having previously spent my time just working with inserting CSS and html into MySpace profile boxes, I'm now going to move on to the next big step of using a DIV overlay and make my MySpace really mine. The book is a quick read, full of useful information, has a lot of screen shots to back up the text, and goes beyond coding issues to useful information for improving your photo techniques and editing. John covers all the bases!
Don't settle for the basics! Create a page that makes an impact, reflects who you really are, and generates a buzz. Amp Your MySpace Page shows you how to create backgrounds, incorporate graphics and custom fonts, and include animation, audio, video, and blogs. Discover effective ways to promote yourself and your career, events, music, art, writing, film, and more. Millions of MySpace users are waiting for you-unleash your full potential online.
Customize your page to make it uniquely your own
Animate your profile with Flash-add marquees, GIFs, and movies
Dazzle your friends with music, audio, and video
Find and use awesome third-party design templates and plug-ins
Add blogs and podcasts-let them hear your voice
Grow your circle of friends into an online community
Create your own MySpace groups
Promote your music, films, and other creations without spending a fortune on marketing
Use MySpace classifieds to sell your stuff, find a job, and much more
REVIEW
A great tutorial to get the reader acquainted with building Web pages and Web sites!
I liked this book a lot. When I first pulled it from the bookstore shelf I thought it would be more involved. I thought it would be more like a treatise on the ins and outs of MySpace and how to customize a MySpace profile. It has 16 chapters and an appendix dealing primarily with HTML coding:
1. The basics of updating your profile
2. Using HTML to enhance your page
3. Using CSS to change your profile
4. Images and photos
5. Animate your profile with Flash and more
6. Make your profile multimedia ready
7. Finding third-party templates and plug-ins
8. Blogging
9. Nine more ways to update your profile
10. Growing your circle of friends
11. Contributing to the MySpace community
12. Unleash your inner artist
13. Developing an online following
14. Using MySpace classified advertising and more
15. Marketing your music on MySpace
16. Working the Net for your music group
As I read through the book I saw that it is a wonderful tutorial. It's kind of like a cookbook. Just start at the beginning and do what it tells you in setting up your MySpace profile and then do exactly what it tells you to do to customize your MySpace presence. What it tells you to domight not tweek your profile the way you want it to ultimately be. But you will learn by doing, and when you finish the book you should be knowledgeable and comfortable with the process so you can go back and redo your presence the way you want it to be.
The beauty of this book is it will ultimately teach you the process of putting together Web pages and Web sites if you let it. Then you will be in a great position to build your company's own Web site and blogs outside of the MySpace arena. 5 stars!
Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show
In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement.
Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors.
In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a videoon YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented.
The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While noLuddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions.
Offering concrete solutions on how we can rein in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.
From the Hardcover edition.
REVIEW
Good Style and Dubious Content Keen's argument--that the Web 2.0 is driven by a Marxist and radical 1960s counter culture ideology and is doomed by these ideologies' shortcomings--is bogus and impossible to support with any empirical evidence. People who are driving Web 2.0 are not ideologues, as Keen would have us believe, but entrepreneurs. In other words, they want to make money.
However, Keen would like to equate the millions of blogs that are born from Web 2.0 with Marxism in order to push his own conservative worldview. In logic, we call this Procrustean thinking, forcing an argument to fit your worldview.
No one said that most blogs are good. A few will rise to the top and we will have to struggle to find the good ones. That's a fair point. But to say that the dumbed down blogs are driven from Marxism and counter cultural ideas from the 1960s is laughable.
What's ironic is that Keen talks about the "Great Seduction" of blogs but the real not so great "seduction" is his fine prose style collapsing under the weight of his Procrustean thinking.
Parents worry they don't have the understanding or training to be able to care for their kids in a world that is increasingly superficial, politicized, and performance driven. Disconnected makes the concepts and strategies described in the bestselling Hurt: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers accessible to parents. After the overwhelming response to Hurt, authors Chap and Dee Clark here equip parents with an up-to-date, realistic parenting book that doesn't ignore the harsh realities of adolescent life. It builds a foundation for parents by describing exactly how things have changed, takes them through the various developmental stages their children go through, and gives them workable paradigms for parenting.
REVIEW
youth pastor This is great woring with parents. I use it at least once a week.
For both internet gurus and online novices, this handy mini-encyclopedia explores the useful and interesting sites—big and small, popular and obscure—that make up Web 2.0, the new online community. From YouTube and Flickr to eBay and Facebook, each website and online application is explained through step-by-step screen shots and examines what each site does, why people use it, how to get started, and any special features. Simple yet thorough definitions for commonly used internet elements—such as tags, bookmarks, blogs, and podcasts—are provided as well as little-known usage tips for expert surfers. Grouped by type, this detailed guide also offers dozens of alternative URLs that cover similar online territory, but with their own unique takes.
REVIEW
Handy guide to Web 2.0 This book is a handy guide to Web 2.0. Burrows explains what exactly is Web 2.0 and how to make the most of it. He describes earlier websites asstatic and Web 2.0 as interactive. In each chapter, Burrows addresses some new interactive, exciting way the Web in now being used. For example, Burrows has a chapter about blogging. He explains what blogging is, the evolution of blogging, how to start a blog and websites where you can actually get started. He uses the same approach in chapters about creating podcasts, sharing videos, social networking and more.
Young people spend hours online each day online, and their abilities to multitask and communicate are often misunderstood by older generations. Dr. Larry Rosen offers a full overview of the various issues young people may experience in their online worlds (cyberbullying, addiction, sexuality, virtual friendships, and more) while at the same time challenging commonly held beliefs that these communities are damaging. Instead of using scare tactics, the book shows parents how to be proactive and anticipate potential problems. With his extensive background in both child development and the impact of technology, Dr. Rosen uses down-to-earth explanations ofsound psychological theory, incorporates groundbreaking research, and shows parents and educators how social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook can improve adolescent socialization skills.
From one of the music industry’s top executives comes the ultimate guide to making the most of the internet to promote yourself and your music. Nicky Kalliongis is a veteran music industry professional who’s worked with the likes of the legendary Clive Davis and L.A. Reid and with artists as diverse as Aretha Franklin, Avril Lavigne, OutKast, Pink, and Prince. He has been involved with hit singles and albums totaling over 653 million copies in sales. Now, he divulges proven Internet marketing strategies for the digital world and demonstrates how any musician or band can put them to use without the benefit of a big budget, marketing team, or PR person. This step-by-step guide shows you how to: Make the most of your MySpace page Utilize MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, and Squidoo in concert for maximum online presence Get people to visit your site and listen to your music Increase traffic to your site Write and circulate an effective press release Attract media, radiostations, record labels, and fans Whether you’re trying to get a record contract or stay independent, MySpace Music Profit Monster gives you all the tools you need to successfully establish yourself online. You make the music. This book will do the rest. "One of the premier music executives in the country, Nicky has participated in the success of the world’s biggest acts, including Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, Aretha Franklin, Carlos Santana, and Prince. His tremendous work ethic, attention to detail, and superb musical instincts truly exemplify him as one of the top A&R men in the business today." (Monte Lipman, President, Universal Republic Records)
REVIEW
Review for My Space MUSIC PROFIT Monster! In today's world where music is the number one download on the Internet and connected with the top gift lines of today, making money with it has not been the on the "top of the online businesses to make money" for the average person. Until now.
From basic HTML codes to social networking, this book clearly and simply explains every single step of the way to the bank, with success whistling all the way. Its contents and index provide an easy way to browse through the book to find exactly what you need to know or do, with professional advice and teaching from cover to cover.
The book is written from heartfelt experience, tough roads, and successful insight. I enjoyed reading it, and with the information in this book opening up a new field on line--it would be best to jump in now ahead of everyone else.
MySpace is one of the most popular websites on the Internet today, with millions of pages of user-generated content. This makes MySpace an ideal tool for musicians interested in promoting their music to the widest possible audience. Many acts have gone from the garage to a recording contract by using MySpace as their launching pad. MySpace for Musicians is for every band, soloist, side musician, record label, publisher, music manager, and entertainment-affiliated company who wants to use MySpace to its fullest potential. It teaches musicians how to design a MySpace page optimized for music promotion and distribution and how to best use MySpace to effectively market music. It includes expert advice on how to market oneself to the MySpace community and how to best position and advertise MySpace pages in the real world. The book caters to musicians who are unfamiliar with the network, as well as musicians who already have a MySpace page but who want to learn how to make better use of it. This is the most comprehensive book on how musicians can maximize the most popular and successful band promotion site!
REVIEW
Essential to making Myspace work for you! This book is the most comprehensive, most up to date, and well thought out book I have seen on the subject of Myspace and social networking. To my knowledge it has been the only attempt at covering all the "need to know" information for people looking to use Myspace for their business advantage. I have used several of the principles presented in the book, and having it as a resource has proven to be invaluable. Whether you consider yourself an expert, or just a casual user, this book will help you maximize the effectiveness of your social networking experience.
“MySpace Marketing is the quintessential low-down on guerilla marketing on the biggest social network on the planet. Marketers big and small need to learn how to connect with their target audiences via social media or get left in the dust. MySpace Marketing gives the grounding and the specific tips and traps essential for marketing success on MySpace.”
—Mark Brooks, Editor, SocialNetworkingWatch.com
“An invaluable guide to the dos and don’ts of building and marketing to social networks—essential reading for the enterprise 2.0.”
—Niall Cook, Author, Enterprise 2.0: How Social Software Will Change the Future of Work
“Social networking is the new PR and advertising—any business not starting to explore the online space will be left behind by the competition. MySpace Marketing gives a practical, step-by-step approach that any business can use for successful marketing on the popular site.”
—Colleen Coplick, BuzzNetworker.com
“Social Networks like MySpace are critical to the future of marketing. With traditional tactics like advertising no longer effective, there is no better way to have prospects experience your brand.”
—Paul Dunay, Global Director of Integrated Marketing, BearingPoint; Author, Buzz Marketing for Technology blog
“MySpace Marketing is a practical guide for anyone involved in brand building. From starting with strategy (‘Is your business right for MySpace marketing?’) to the ins and outs of profile creation and audience segmentation, this book is an essential primer for small business owners and large brands alike on one of the biggest social networks.”
—Scott Monty,The Social Media Marketing Blog, Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company
“MySpace Marketing takes a respectful look at the rich community of MySpace and instructs marketers on how to successfully become a part of that community. Part field-guide and part how-to manual, MySpace Marketing delivers a great read and solid advice.”
—Kate Trgovac, Editor-in-Chief, OneDegree.ca
“I have read a lot of books on marketing on MySpace, but what makes MySpace Marketing stand out are the examples (mini case studies) of what actually works on MySpace. The examples of what type of marketing campaigns have been successful and what you can do to replicate that campaign are really insightful and provide me with enough informationthat I feel I could go and launch a successful marketing campaign on MySpace today.”
—David Wilson, Social Media Blogger, http://social-media-optimization.com
“Social media marketing doesn’t have to be a series of trials and errors. MySpace Marketing is one of the only resources I’ve seen that takes the guesswork out of how to market in one of the largest social networks. Regardless of level of experience or resources, it gives step-by-step strategies suitable for large and small companies alike.”
—Lisa Braziel, Community Engagement Director, Ignite Social Media; Coauthor, Social Media is a Cocktail Party
Got something to sell? With more than 150,000,000 members, MySpace is your #1 marketing opportunity! Whether you’re a business, band, or organization, MySpace is the place to deliver your message and reach your customers. Best of all, you don’t need to spend a fortune to profit from MySpace marketing: just get this book! MySpace marketing pioneer Sean Percival covers all the free and dirt-cheap guerrilla marketing techniques you’ll ever need, including
Identifying and precision-targeting your audience
Promoting your band, music, event, nightclub, or movie
Reaching the 60% of MySpace users who are 25 or older
Creating and designing a highly-effective MySpace profile
Quickly building your friend network
Attracting “must-have” friends who build buzz and businesses
Planning your marketing “call to action”
Optimizing search engines to find your profile
Making the most of MySpace video, music, and blogs
Marketing to specific high schools or colleges
Hiring through MySpace
More goodies online! Visuals, backgrounds, and code for supercharging your profile...advanced video how-to tutorials...and an up-to-the-minute MySpace Marketing blog! http://myspacemarketing.ning.com
Introduction 1
New Frontiers 1
What Is MySpace Marketing? 2
Friending Is the New Advertising 3
Secrets of Success 3
The Future of Social Networks 5
Part I: Welcome to MySpace
1 Is Your Business Right for MySpace Marketing 9
How Big Is MySpace? 10
Understanding How Social Networks Like MySpace Work 10
