Law X.0

The MySpace Effect

News Corp. COO, Peter Chernin, discusses how MySpace has influenced its parent company's business model, and vice-versa in this brief Fortune video. The video is part of Fortune's series of stories and videos covering Brainstorm Tech 2008. [JH]

Niche Social Networks Gaining Traction

Check out MySpace, Facebook: Big Not Always Better on CNN. The story notes that huge social-networking sites are losing people to smaller, specialized sites.

Professor Kagan observes on his A Little Class on the Internet blog:

An intriguing question is whether the next phase in social networking will be a migration to micro-interest sites. For now, FB and MS are permitting these niche sites to build widgets that integrate into the larger sites, so that users can keep tabs on all their social networks from a single location. But will that be enough as FB and MS users realize that the high-quality information and truly devoted hobbyists/interestists on niche sites exceed the lowest-common-denominator status that comes with having a truly immense user base?

Seems inevitable to me. [JH]

Woman Linked to MySpace Suicide Denies Blogging "Megan Had It Coming" Post

CNN is reporting that police are investigating Internet postings of someone posing as Lori Drew, the woman linked to an online hoax played on Megan Meier. Megan Meier, only 13 at the time, committed suicide last October after receiving cruel messages on MySpace. See our earlier post.

According to CNN, a blog post, "Megan Had It Coming," lays out Drew's would-be motives for getting involved in MySpace hoax. Lori Drew's attorney said Friday that she is not the writer. [JH]

Is Facebook Overrated?

The article is about the advertising prospects of Facebook and MySpace. "Members of both Facebook and its chief rival, MySpace, spend on average about 3 1/2 hours a month clicking around on each site, but they get so caught up in checking out their friends' pages and updating their own that they are less likely to click through to the ads, writes Anita Hamilton in this Time article. [JH]

Parents Say Fake MySpace "Friend" Led to Teenage Girl's Suicide

CNN reports: Family says a 13 year old girl was so upset after "Josh" ended their friendship on MySpace that she committed suicide in October 2006. "Josh" turned out to be the creation of a neighborhood family. The parents want the people who made the fraudulent online profile to be prosecuted but law enforcement officials say the case doesn't fit into any law. [JH]