PC World Hates MySpace
Posted on September 15, 2006
PC World has a feature with their picks for the 25 worst websites. MySpace received the number one spot on PC World's list of the Internet's worst offerings. PC World blasts MySpace over safety issues, lousy design and unintelligent conversation.
Graphically, many MySpace pages look like a teenager's bedroom after a tornado--a swirl of clashing backgrounds, boxes stacked inside other boxes, massive photos, and sonic disturbance. Try loading a few of those pages at once and watch what happens to your CPU. Watch out for spyware, too, since it turns out that MySpace has become a popular distribution vector for drive-by downloads and other exploits. And in a place where "U are soooooooo hot!!!" passes for wit, MySpace isn't doing much to elevate the level of social discourse.Most of the issues PC World has with MySpace sound more like criticism of MySpace users than MySpace itself. A lot of the competing social networks have similar annoyances. But PC World was probably just trying to be controversial so lots of bloggers would discuss their huge diss of MySpace. If you have been on the Internet long enough you will have heard of most of PC World's selections for the worst websites.In response to a public backlash and some well-publicized lawsuits, MySpace has begun modifying its policies--for example, limiting adults' ability to contact minors. That's hardly enough. Requiring some kind of authentication from MySpacers--or their parents--to validate their ages and identities would go a long way toward scaring off the creeps and making the site a kinder, gentler social network
Is MySpace totally bad? Not at all. Are we old farts? Yeah, probably. But the Web's most popular site needs a serious security reboot. And probably a makeover. Until then, MySpace won't ever be OurSpace.