30 million find a place on MySpace.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

Lisa Nash has only been using MySpace.com since July, but already the Lane Community College student has made the social networking Web site a part of her daily routine. She uses it to stay in touch with her brother, Joe, who lives in Portland, and she credits the site with everything from helping her meet new friends to finding out about college courses to discovering new hip-hop artists.

"At first, I got the impression it was a dating site. I didn't really know what it was about," says Nash, 21, "until I started receiving messages and e-mailing."

Nash is one of 30 million, mostly young, Internet users who have discovered MySpace, a site that's become as ubiquitous as backpacks and skateboards among high school and college students. The free site, which was founded in 2003 by two under-40 Internet entrepreneurs from Los Angeles and recently bought up by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., allows users to create their own personalized Web pages with photos, blogs, music, video and virtual wallpaper. Part of the site's appeal has to do with the millions of personal profiles available for perusal. Each individual page contains a list of "friends" with photos, and links to that user's profile.

"I love to hate it," says Justin Carlson, 20, an admitted MySpace addict who spends at least an hour a day on the site. "I can stay up all night just linking different people together."

MySpace is adding 60,000 users a day, the company says. The site recently surpassed Google in the number of monthly pages viewed, according to Comscore MediaMetrix, a company that tracks Web traffic.

"I'm not sure what happened, but somewhere along the line, it caught the pulse of pop culture," says Kurt Liedtke, 26, a Eugene native, now working as music marketing manager for MySpace.

"There's something about this site that appeals to everybody."

Users widen social circle

Although Liedtke lives in Los Angeles, where MySpace has its headquarters, he used Eugene as a staging ground for a promotional video to attract advertisers and investors. He hired local videographer Mark Scharen, 26, co-owner of the Eugene company Symbolic Media Inc., to make a five-minute trailer about MySpace. For the past month, Scharen has been interviewing users such as Nash in an effort to highlight all the ways people use the Web site.

"I knew it was big, but I didn't realize how much MySpace has consumed people's lives," Scharen says. "(People) are just on MySpace all the time."

MySpace's popularity is apparent at Sheldon High School, where the site has been banned from school computers. Eugene School District spokesman Kelly McIver says the site was becoming too much of a distraction to students, and a potential liability to the school.

"It was like an electronic form of note passing," McIver says. "I think that there is just too great of a possibility for abuse where it can be taken into the realm of slander, libel, teasing and harassment."

That hasn't stopped Sheldon students from using the site at home.

Junior Claire Nessler, 16, spends an average of one to two hours a day on MySpace. Her site has flashing heart wallpaper, a list of personal likes and dislikes and several photos, including one of gangster grandson John Gotti Agnello, aka "the Hotti Gotti." As you scroll down the site, pictures of her MySpace "friends" pop up, including some she's never met in person from faraway cities.

"I use it to keep in touch with friends," Nessler says. "I have friends from New York, New Jersey, Florida."

Nessler's real world friend, Ariana Brubaker, uses MySpace to communicate with her boyfriend, who lives in California. She says the site allows her to encounter people on different terms.

"You get to meet people without really meeting them, so they're not as shy," Brubaker says.

"Everybody in (school), with the exception of a few people, has MySpace."

At the University of Oregon, MySpace appears to have a strong presence, even if it isn't quite the must-have commodity it is among high school students. Nick Gates, 19, a freshman from Grants Pass, started using MySpace to keep track of high school friends and classmates.

"It's an informal way to tell my friends what I'm doing," says Gates, while updating his profile from his laptop inside the Buzz coffee shop on a recent weekday morning.

Not everyone is a fan.

"I think MySpace is really creepy because anybody can find you," says Keir Boettcher, 20, a junior.

"All your info is right there for stalkers (to see)," agrees Boettcher's friend, Stefanie Loh, 20.

MySpace doesn't require users to provide full names, there are content restrictions, and many users say the security risks are minimal.

But some, such as Loh, still prefer Facebook, another social networking site that preceded MySpace and requires that users have a valid university ID. Friendster, another predecessor, enjoyed a brief period of popularity, but has since faded.

Transforming the music industry

Rupert Murdoch apparently saw the value of MySpace. In July, the media mogul agreed to acquire the site's parent company for $580 million.

During a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in April, he said the digital era was revolutionizing the way young people get their news, and he has called for greater integration between Internet technology and broadcast and print media. MySpace will join his company's online division, Fox Interactive Media.

Liedtke is now helping to launch a MySpace record label. The company also plans to begin radio programming and podcasting. The first MySpace music release, a CD of unsigned MySpace bands, is due out in November. About 400,000 bands have profiles on MySpace, and Liedtke compares the Web site's impact on the music business to the launch of MTV during the 1980s.

"(MTV) had a certain voice. They presented people in a way where they weren't being presented," he says. "MySpace has that same mentality of representing those who aren't really being represented by the mainstream."

MySpace already has started to revolutionize the music industry, say insiders such as Rocco Gallo, an independent music producer and disc jockey for the UO campus radio station KWVA. He says two-thirds of the booking he does goes through MySpace. Instead of asking bands to send bulky press kits with music CDs and glossy photos, he clicks on their MySpace pages. Without leaving his chair, he can hear their music, read about their background and read reviews from other users.

"The first thing I ask bands is, `Do you have a MySpace Profile?' ' Gallo says.

Gallo hopes MySpace will lead to more widespread recognition for local groups. He says the site has already broadened the spectrum of live music that's coming to town, and it's put promotional power in the hands of independent artists.

Craig Leve, another KWVA DJ and active MySpace user, agrees.

"Indie labels don't necessarily do a lot of promotion," Leve says. "My basic feeling about it for bands is why wouldn't you do it? It's sort of a free promotional tool, and how often do those come along in life?"

Todd Edman, guitarist for the Eugene band Android Ethic, has been using MySpace for a year to spread the word about his modern rock group. He maintains an electronic press kit that includes a biography, a list of upcoming shows and streaming audio.

"When we played gigs in (other) cities ... we had 10 people in the front row who knew all the lyrics to our songs," he says.

It isn't just indie bands who are finding a home on MySpace. Marty Larson-Xu, lead singer for the Eugene-bred Atlantic Records band the Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers, says the site makes sense for any group.

"The more you can do yourself, the better," he says. "The whole industry is changing because of MySpace. Artists can do so much more with their own careers."

The Soldiers stream audio and video from their profile page. They maintain a blog from the road and exchange e-mails with fans. MySpace listeners can link up to the Soldiers' page and stream songs or videos on their own personal pages.

Since the Soldiers joined the site five months ago, they've racked up over 14,000 fans, or "friends" in MySpace lingo.

Each MySpace profile lists the number of "friends" who are linked up to a particular user, which is part of the reason some have called the site an online popularity contest. Others have said the site, which is heavy on loud music and glossy photos, has the personality of a teenager's bedroom.

Matt Koehler, a Eugene landscape architect, has another way of describing it.

"It's like the Internet version of reality TV," says Koehler, 30, who calls himself the only person he knows who isn't a member of MySpace.

It's still unclear whether MySpace will become the eBay of social networking sites or end up as just another flash in the Internet pan. Even some of the site's most devoted fans are predicting its downfall, but others say instant popularity isn't such a bad thing.

"It is trendy, but I think it will stick around," Nash says. "It's easy, it's free and it's fun."

CAPTION(S):

MySpace.com user Lisa Nash participates in a promotional video for the wildly popular Internet portal Thursday at Lane Community College.