The MySpace Series Part VIII – Will New Age Restrictions Effect Music Marketers?
In response to growing safety concerns, MySpace is planning new restrictions on how adults may contact younger users.
MySpace currently prohibits kids 13 and under from setting up accounts and shows only partial profiles for those registered as 14 or 15 unless the person viewing the profile is already on their friends list. Under the changes which take effect next week, MySpace users 18 and older can no longer request to be on a 14 or 15-year-old’s friends’ list unless they already know either the kid’s e-mail address or full name.
While the changes were made to try to stop predators, they will also have a chilling effect on bands, labels, and marketers who want to reach younger teens. Kids under 18 can still be the one initiating contact with a band or other MySpace member, but the common practice of "inviting" friends who, for example, like a similar band will be restricted to those over 16.
And there still is plenty of room for fraud. MySpace has no way to verify that users give their real age when registering. That means adults can still sign up as teens and request to join a 14-year-old’s list of friends. Plus partial profiles display gender, age and city. Full profiles add hobbies, schools and any other personal details a member may want to share.
Here is you know when a website is over. It starts to get illogical.
1. There is no way they can check what’s the age of a registrant. Most of those are robots account anyway by now.
2. Myspace has become so big the social dynamic changes. It turns into spam bazaar and clueless PTA mom convention. (ie. Yes Mom, people do fuck each other in the ass and talk about it online and salad tossing is not what you think it is. No, don’t click on that anti virus advice or help that nigerian dude transferring bank account. Mom, stay away from the keyboard.)
So two forces at play, it becomes so big that spammers will create numerous techniques to get into the huge database, which then create backlash by implementing ever stricker rules….
In the end, the place is dead and not what it used to be anymore.
So, MySpace is dead. It’s there because there is no replacement out there yet. I give it 2 years for the next hottest things for band promotion to show up. And that’s conservative estimate.
okay. so i get your issues – i get what you’re saying, i get the limiting of access to teens to market music and so on.
i also understand that predators jump over these fences easily to get through to the kids – give the wrong age, hack their profiles, whatever.
but can you actually blame myspace? have you noticed the influx of reports of girls being found talking to mid-thirties creeps, naively following them to places to meet and get molested. it’s a predator’s playground. myspace new they had something, but it’s out of their hands now, and they’re trying to cap the backlash of bad news coming through that they never expected. they’re trying to save their asses – and maybe they care about the kids, too.
marketers are really good at what they do. they’ll find another way to get through to teens. how about this blogosphere? i think it’s a matter of time before music/mp3 blogs are “the big thing” and teens will be pouring in. like “squashed” said – less than two years, there will be something else.