MySpace Popularity Overtakes Yahoo

Story by Kate Murray

Since the beginning of “its” time PHS has blocked it from the premises. Parents have feared for their children’s safety. TMJ4 has tracked down perverts who use this as a tool to catch their young prey posing as teens themselves. Yet students from PHS and around the world alike contribute to the ever-rising popularity of MySpace.com.

MySpace is labeled “a place for friends” and is simply a social networking website which allows its services for free. From instant messaging to sharing pictures and accumulating music, the features that MySpace has to offer are very appealing to young adults. Some social networking sites have many free features, but to get the best for a site one would have to upgrade or go premium by paying a monthly fee. MySpace however doesn’t have that in any way, which is great for a student who would rather spend his/her money elsewhere.

MySpace has very recently made history by knocking Yahoo off its pedestal and becoming the number one visited site on the World Wide Web. According to CNN 38.7 billion people visited MySpace in the United States as opposed to the 38.1 billion that Yahoo racked up.

Yahoo has started to use the Ajax system on their website. Not sure what Ajax is? It’s a system that takes snippets of information instead of pulling up an entire website, this has started being used for mapping, email and other services that Yahoo provides. Nissa Anklesaria, spokesperson for Yahoo Inc said;

“Yahoo continues to be the overall Web audience leader with the largest number of unique users and most time spent online. The page view change in November is related to the use of Ajax and other Web 2.0 technologies across the Yahoo network.”

Anklesaria also commented that the developing technology would make websites friendlier for users, even though it isn’t a full-page view. Incidentally this new technology is thinning the crowds that Yahoo once counted on for their high numbers. However, it doesn’t seem to make sense, it would be practical that technology which makes using the World Wide Web easier would be a great asset to anyone but it has turned out to be the opposite for some.
Maybe the MySpace phenomenon has just taken a hold of our society; everyone is jumping on the social networking train.