Debunking the MySpace Myth of 100 Million Users at Forever Geek

Forevergeek has an interesting little analysis that digs into some of the facts behind the inflated figures on Myspace.

The latest annoyance has been the self-indulgent claim of web 2.0 bloggers that MySpace has 100,000,000 users. Interestingly, this specific headline says accounts, but the article and subsequent articles all say users. I would say that anyone with half a clue knows that 'accounts' are not the same as 'users', but that would be obvious, wouldn't it?

He concludes that the figures have been blown up by 133%, yet the mediasphere (so, big media and the blogosphere) continue to take them as fact unthinkingly.

This is something that has irked me for a while: you see this happening across all kinds of websites and it is nothing new. People commonly set up accounts which lay dormant and neglected - I know a lot of people who do that, myself included. But people often actively choose to have multiple "faces" because they can - like a public and private persona. This is especially so for virtual worlds such as Second Life.

To me, Myspace is in danger of becoming like networked spam or something similar. A PR clubhouse. I know it has a different feel, but it is Spam 2.0. There are so many bands and brands there, my concept of authenticity is getting muddled. See avatar marketing.