No Hoooka’s in MySpace

MySpace users are starting to feel the pain of the world's largest online community. I suppose this is only fair, it is their town after all!

MySpace has begun to limit the number and kinds of tools that users can embed in their pages. The giant community that sees over 90 million viewers a month wants to restrict users from having video players, advertising and other types of transaction tools. Evidently News Corporation, the owner or MaySpace, wants to ensure that they alone can capitalize on the massive traffic the site generates.

Ms. Tequila is a MySpace resident who has issues with the trend to limit these tool additions. She has linked to 1.7 million friends on her MySpace page, and tried promoting her first album by adding a new music player and store called the Hoooka. The latest news is that MySpace says: “No Way.” 

According to a NY Times article by Brad Stone this morning, 20,000 people listened to Tequila's music and accompanying video this weekend. Then Hoooka disappeared on Sunday after MySpace chief Tom Anderson contacted Ms. Tequila in objection to her actions. MySpace publicly announced that they will block widgets when they are in violation of the terms of service agreement. MySpace also objects to advertising without authorization unless members enter into a direct partnership with the company.

“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.”

MySpace said that the service did not remove anything from Ms. Tequila's space, but contacted her to let her know she was in violation, and that she voluntarily removed the objects. Justin Goldberg, CEO of  Indie911 the outfit that helped Ms. Tequila's, said that MySpace's actions undercut implied user creative freedoms at MySpace.

MySpace will receive over $900 million from Google over the next three years to offer advertising to the site's users. MySpace is obviously entering into agreements of their own to gain revenue, and these user generated revenue “kits” are in obvious conflict with their own plans.

Web 2.0 seems to keep teetering in between the old Web and the new, as companies attempt to capitalize on the increased traffic and user generated stimuli. Ms. Tequila's dilemma is a sad one, but really to be expected when social communities that are effectively controlled by traditional business are fighting for their own revenue.

MySpace, like other Web 2.0 companies, is going to protect its own interests. YouTube was a special case, and admittedly MySpace wishes they had shut that down too. There is an underlying problem with Web 2.0 that everyone loses sight of, which is the fact that these communities are out there to make money. Business is a very jealous and evil commodity at times, so don't expect to walk off with “the man's” money easily.

Personally, if I had 1.7 million friends or contacts, think I might have been able to direct their attention towards Veoh or some other community in order to debut my wares. Someone enlighten this poor artist please! Any way, maybe it's time we all got a little more real about these things. Internet rights are not exactly like “The Bill of Rights” you know. You can't just use up someone's bandwidth forever and in an unlimited fashion without some repercussion. Conversely, sites like MySpace should not operate under the veiled disguise of an altruistic “magic tooth fairy” either.

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