Yes, You Can Still Have a Garish MySpace Page that Bleeds Off the Screen
MySpace releases its profile editor 2.0. You can control page width! Only a handful of templates to start, with a few that are movie-themed (ie sponsored).
When I talked with MySpace about this a few days ago, I marveled at MySpace’s ability to encourage customization (over half its users), especially in the face of pretty hard to use tools. Very DIY in the early days: “copy a friend’s HTML!” though that spawned a cottage industry of third-party offerings. We’ve been wondering if widgets would get user customization adoption above the historical 15%-20% barrier. But of course, MySpace has always been at least as much about personal expression as it is about communication or entertainment consumption.
The new tools are pretty easy to use, although they could use a tutorial for geezers. (At least half of MySpace’s audience is over 35, contrary to popular opinion.) There’s more control over which of your friends groups see what, and there’s a kinda-sorta apps gallery presentation in the profile editor. I’m disappointed that you can’t click through on my “interests” now. I hope that’s a temporary bug. And now I wish I could re-skin my music player.
Overall a pretty good compromise of a tool that can support power users and beginners.
Mashable coverage.
UPDATED: MySpace folks tell me the ability to click through on links in your favorites or interests is in the works: “We’ve cleared the way for a more sophisticated incarnation that is in development.” Ah, good.