Guardian of the Non Sequitur

The Inflated Worth of MySpace

Why doesn’t myspace want me to block spammers?

1. I get an email from a new “friend” and have to click the link.
2. I have to log in manually, because myspace is too stupid to provide me with a link in the email that will log me in and/or keep me logged in from last time. The link already has “id=901C2C3E- C4C7- 4B01- 8C3A- B8E67467D47F” in it, and it still couldn’t log me on.
3. I’m shown the invitation and have to click through to the profile.
4. I click “block user”.
5. Java script pops up a confirmation panel and I have to click “OK”. Yes I really want to block this user. If I did it accidentally, I could always go unblock them.
6. Another page reloads to re-confirm that yes, I really want to block this user. I click “block this user”.
7. Back on the invite page, I take one more click to “mark as spam”.

There could easily have been a “mark as spam and block user” button there, and with auto-login, it could have taken me two steps. Why doesn’t myspace do this? Because they’re stupid? Yes, that’s true. But I think the reason they don’t is they like spam users. It drives up their “usage” stats, and makes them look somehow still relevant.It’s January 1 - and I have one spam friend invite. Come December 31 2007, I’d wager I’ve had 200 more. And hopefully, the slow to the party print media will have pronounced “MySpace is Dead”!

January 1st, 2008 Posted by bshirley | corporations, tech, web | 3 comments