PR and the Social Web

A major social network makes the list for the first time in this festive countdown of the most influential places on the web to make their debut in the last decade.  Joining WordPress and Digg on the top ten is the trail blazer MySpace

Number 8 – MySpace As well as being the standard bearer for social networking and the unassailable leader in the sector in the middle years of the decade, MySpace has also been something of a problem child.  Launched in 2003, in less than three years MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the US, a position it held for just two short years before becoming eclipsed by Facebook.  Famously it was bought in July 2005 for US$580 million by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Despite controversies around the site’s launch (many argue that identifying Tom Anderson  as its founder is inaccurate) and a commonly held  view that it is poorly designed, MySpace has had a huge impact on the web.   Social networking in general became mainstream via MySpace and the fact that it allowed users the ability to embed YouTube clips gave huge impetus to the video sharing site in its early days.  Claims that it is all over for MySpace seem a little rash when it remains the world’s 12th biggest web site and the 5th most popular in the US.