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98
Steve Weber
You can visit Oliverez on MySpace and read the first two chapters of
his book at:
MySpace: Not just for kids
What Oliverez did wasn’t new. He took a page from the thousands
of unsigned rock bands that have tapped MySpace to build their
audiences. It’s a simple yet wonderfully effective strategy: The bands put
samples of their music on their MySpace profile, and friends forward the
songs to an ever-enlarging circle of friends. Bands that “go viral” on
MySpace sell lots more concert tickets and CDs, and some have snagged
major recording contracts. Even the journeymen are raking it in by
hawking their disks, T-shirts and other goodies right on MySpace.
Authors are quickly realizing they can do the same thing the bands
are doing: use MySpace to go directly to their audience, without needing
a big fat marketing campaign or the muscle of a big publisher.
Barely two years after its launch, MySpace became the most popular
U.S. Web site based on number of visits during 2006. Each member has
his or her own circle of like-minded friends. After you become someone’s
MySpace friend, you have access to his or her friends. And each of your
new friends has more friends.
While there are hundreds of social-networking sites—Facebook,
Friendster, Orkut and Tribe.net to name just a few—MySpace has
captured more than 80 percent of the traffic. If you want to see what all
the fuss is about, you can open a MySpace account here:
If you wish, you can make your MySpace account private until you’re
ready to use it. Go to Account Settings and then Privacy Settings.
MySpace? You might be thinking, “Isn’t that for high-school kids?”
Sure, that’s the stereotype; MySpace is popular with kids. But with
nearly 100 million members and the No. 1 traffic rank on the entire
Internet, clearly there’s more to it than loitering schoolkids.
Authors of every genre are jumping on the MySpace bandwagon.
Horror novelist Michael Laimo says he got more than a dozen big media
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