I love the Internet. Name it and you can find it online. You can shop, travel, earn a degree, find a job, meet new friends, date, marry, attend a funeral or watch a film. One good friend of mine is becoming quite successful at day trading stocks online, another isn’t too shabby playing online poker (NOTE: I do not advise attempting either of these things unless you have the time and money to invest, and the knowledge to do it right.)
People are also using the Net to see and be seen by anyone willing to take a peek. Popular sites like YouTube, Facebook, Myspace, and photo sharing sites like Flickr or Snapfish allow members to showcase their work and themselves. Stars have been made on these sites, people with real talent and some so out there that they generate enough site visits to earn them notoriety if nothing else. It’s amazing how free people can be in cyberspace compared to the social restraints of the real world.
I recently entered the Myspace realm after a chat with my sister about her son’s site. It sounded like he did a nice job designing it, but one has to be a member of Myspace (and other sites of this nature) to view the site. Not only must you become a member, you have to be approved by the owner of the Myspace page to be added as a “friend”. After promising I wouldn’t write any cutsey “auntie” stuff, my teenaged nephew agreed to include me on his friend list when I signed on for a Myspace account.
That was the easy part. It’s free and doesn’t take a working knowledge of rocket science to do. Once I OK’d the triple site warning that informed me I could never change the Myspace URL- so I should be certain I wanted that one, I was in. I choose barbaradolny for the URL, with a user name (that can be changed) of Barbara. Not very creative but I knew I wouldn’t forget it and lose access to my account.
After staring for awhile at the resulting homepage of my new account, wondering what the heck to do next, I decided to do what any adult with my limited technical knowledge would do - I phoned a kid for help. In this case, it was my nephew, who lives 500 miles away from me. The first thing he did, after gathering information to work on my account, was grouch about the boring name and URL. Since the URL was set in the stone of the Myspace world, we settled for changing from Barbara to the “cooler”, according to Nephew, Galdra, which means magic.
I then basically sat on the phone, refreshing every so often when I got the go ahead from the nephew. He set me up with a nice background and an account on Project Playlist, another site for music that can be used on your Myspace page. He helped me search for the kind of music I liked and added that to my page, along with a photo. When my nephew was finished, I had a very nice site that I only screwed up a few times since. He patiently reset my information the first time I lost everything when trying to do something on my own. That gave me confidence to continue learning how to do some basics, including how to control what is added to my site by people and how to have a public site that avoids spam. (Sites can be set to private - recommended for children, or public with restrictions, or no holds barred).
While I’m certainly not 100% Myspace savvy, I now can do more things on my page, navigate the sites, and find other people I know with an account to add to my own friend list. It’s a great place to network or connect with friends. Musicians, filmmakers, writers, and other creative sorts have pages there too. I love discovering someone new or finding out the latest on an old favorite. And, with my nephew as my safety net, I may even try to tackle YouTube next.
Special thanks to Anthony B. for all of his help and patience!
© 2008 Barbara Dolny
Photo of author by Tim Bombar
