Nowadays, it seems that almost every person who has a 
computer has heard, "Do you have a MySpace profile?" I 
know I have heard it from a couple of people. MySpace 
and other social networking sites are huge with 
teenagers. In fact, teenagers author about half of all 
blogs in all chatting places, according to a 2003 
study done by Perseus Development Corporation. Another 
study done by comScore Media Metrix revealed that a 
majority of the top 15 sites visited by teens up to 
age 17 in January 2005 were either blogs or social 
networking sites.
For those people who don’t know about it, MySpace is a 
place to meet people from all over the world and make 
them your friends. You can meet people from Asia, 
Europe or even people that go to your school. You can 
create your own page on MySpace however you want, with 
few restrictions. You can put anything, like tagging, 
for the background or even the picture of someone you 
like. And all of this is free. 
If you don’t think that MySpace is the best internet 
chatting thing today, you don’t have to take my word 
for it. All the people that have seen MySpace say that 
it is the coolest chatting site today. All these 
people have also said that MySpace is better than 
Yahoo!, MSN Hotmail, AOL, the G-Mail thing and other 
Internet chatting pages or messengers. Through MySpace 
you can meet people from around the world, from the 
city where you live, and even people that go to the 
same school as you. Jasmine, a student at Watsonville 
High School said, "What I like the most about MySpace, 
is the decoration of the profiles." Xavier a student 
at Rolling Hills Middle School said, "You can put 
music in your profile and other stuff and that’s 
cool." 
Another cool thing about MySpace is that many bands 
from Santa Cruz County use it as a place to promote 
their band. Have you ever heard of a band called 
Fainting Goats? You can find them on MySpace. The band 
includes Dave Harrah as the lead guitarist and 
vocalist. Dave is also the 7th grade Language Arts 
Level C teacher and the school band conductor at 
Rolling Hills Middle School. MySpace has also been 
used as a place for bands to get feedback about their 
music. For example, REM lead singer, Michael Stipe led 
a discussion thread on MySpace about his bands latest 
release.
There are other social networking sites, including 
Google’s Orkut, Yahoo! 360, Friendster, and LinkedIn, 
a networking site for business associates. In LinkedIn 
a person can look up profiles of Kelly Perdew, winner 
of the reality series “The Apprentice 2.” You can also 
look up profiles for Rob Glaser, CEO of Seattle-based 
RealNetworks. Even Bill Gates is a member of this 
site. Over at Friendster, members can view "official 
profiles" of film and TV characters like Will Smith’s 
character of the movie “Hitch” or Pamela Anderson in 
the upcoming Fox Comedy “Stacked,” and you can sign up 
as a fan. 
But some people are worried about so many teenagers 
using MySpace. A study of teenager’s blogs published 
this year by the Children’s Digital Media Center at 
Georgetown University revealed that kids put way too 
much information on their blogs or profiles. Two-
thirds provide their age and at least their first 
name. Sixty percent provide the town or city where 
they live and their telephone or cell phone number and 
e-mail. But every one in five teenagers provide their 
full name. Some parents are worried that having 
personal information on MySpace and other social 
networking sites is asking for trouble.
So if you want to meet new friends from your town or 
around the world, you might want to check out MySpace, 
the coolest chatting site today.