MySpace News Beta - Great, but Just One Problem...

MySpace has launched a news aggregator called MySpace News.  Although it has similar features to other social news sites, and was predicted to be a major competitor to Digg.com, it is a little different from Digg, in that there is currently no "friends" feature, there are a lot more news categories, there is no membership (users do not have an ID), and users do not submit stories – they simply vote on what stories are available through the feed.

 

Even though MySpace News is owned by MySpace, users of the news beta are not required at this time to have a MySpace account to vote on stories, and there is no way to know who has voted on a story to make connections with other users with similar interests. (On the plus side, there is also no way to accumulate cyber-stalkers, since no one knows who has voted for which stories.)

 

The aggregator is very good, and I have been pleased with the stories I'm finding in my favorite sections.  Using MySpace News is very easy; just go to http://news.myspace.com, select your categories, and start reading and voting.

 

It might actually replace some web users' current social bookmarkers or news aggregators, except for one problem:  Many places of business, schools, and libraries have blocked MySpace…and this includes the MySpace News Beta.  For MySpace News to ultimately be successful, they will have to find a way around this.  My suggestion?  Change the name.

 

JennSierra

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Jenn Sierra (author)
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