No More MySpace

Since it's launch, MySpace's widespread popularity has grown to more than 87 million users. Admittedly, I too have fallen victim to the "black hole."

Yesterday I received some disturbing news over my work email: "Effective Friday, July 21, we will begin restricting access to MySpace.com." Employees will now be BLOCKED from using MySpace at work! Apparently, the web site has been introducing ongoing computer virus infections onto our company PCs that have become significant enough to be noticed by our tech support people. Hence, no more MySpace. Exceptions will only be made for employees that "need to access the site for news, marketing, and other business-related activity."

According to BBC News today, “more than one million MySpace users could have been caught by a banner advert that installs spyware via a Windows bug. Those who fell victim were bombarded with pop-up adverts and had their browsing habits monitored by the malicious software. Reports suggest the advert has been running on MySpace for about a week.”

Side note: I bet this problem did not affect Macintosh computers!! They’re the best, in case you were wondering.

After some thought, I decided the news that MySpace would not be accessible to me anymore at work was only mildly annoying. Since the first few months of obsession, my interest in the site tapered off substantially, although I admit to still logging on periodically throughout the day to check for messages, new friend requests, etc. But with the plethora of web sites available just a click away, I prefer not to waste all of my desk job down time on one site.

However, I am considerably worried about a few of my co-workers. When wandering around the office on a quiet afternoon, the screens that I walk past all contain telltale MySpace profile windows. Each time I log into MySpace at work, another one of my co-workers is bound to have posted a bulletin. I would honestly estimate that there are some people in my office who are surfing the site for more than 50% of the workday. As the "access denial" message popped into our Outlook mailboxes, I swear I heard simultaneous groans of dismay and outrage across the entire floor. Don’t these people have jobs to do?!?

I predict that Friendster is going to see a HUGE amount of activity next week.

Personally, I feel kind of relieved to not have the distraction of MySpace. The site really seems to cause more drama than it’s worth, especially for us people with desk jobs who have nothing better to do than dig up personal information about our friends (and enemies).

Goodbye MySpace, you will be missed. But I think I will get a lot more work done...