myspace to sell user data

[silverwhisper]

courtesy of slashdot...

short version: in a step that will likely be the nail in myspace's coffin, the also-ran will sell "user playlists, mood updates, mobile updates, photos, vents, reviews, blog posts, names and zipcodes". less short version here.

commentary: is anyone still using myspace?

ed

 

[infinity706]

Well, as a scientist, I can certainly say such data would be extremely useful and cost saving since you could easily do a random sample of thousands of people without having to send out millions of questionairres in the mail. It would also save millions of review board hours in a year as well as hours of consent forms, and taking up participants' time to send in surveys, since it would just be observation of publically available data. It would also allow for more pure social research since participants may change their behavior if they know they're being watched. I think the bigger concern is who else might get their hands on it, though.

Of course, with the opt in/out idea, that could make the data useless for research purposes if a large number of people decline to make their information available. That would be about as useful as posting a sex questionairre on literotica and trying to generalize it to the population as a whole. Honestly, I think a poll in Cosmopolitan magazine is probably less biased than one here.

 

[littlebabyclit]

I'm still using MySpace. Will have to read the links you provided on my computer at home. Hard to check them out via my phone's web browser. But haven't they said this kind of stuff before about MySpace? Isn't it just a bunch of viral gossipy b.s. usually that never happens?

My profile pages there are anonymous as could be but hey, I'm sick of being over there anyways so they'd better not give me a reason to vacate. But I still refuse to relocate over to that mind numbingly boring Freakbook a.k.a. Facebook. What's left ? They only allow me to ramp up my profle so much here.

 

[silverwhisper]

no, it's an actual announcement. myspace has apparently decided to take a dump on its users by selling that data to a startup called infochimps.

ed

 

[littlebabyclit]

Huh. Bastards.

 

[viper2000]

infinity706


"Well, as a scientist, I can certainly say such data would be extremely useful and cost saving since you could easily do a random sample of thousands of people without having to send out millions of questionairres in the mail. It would also save millions of review board hours in a year as well as hours of consent forms, and taking up participants' time to send in surveys, since it would just be observation of publically available data. It would also allow for more pure social research since participants may change their behavior if they know they're being watched. I think the bigger concern is who else might get their hands on it, though."

I agree it would make research much easier but the trade off is privacy of people in the long term id just assume that it`ll be used by the wrong people.

 

[silverwhisper]

exactly, viper.

ed

 

[bailadora]

But I still refuse to relocate over to that mind numbingly boring Freakbook a.k.a. Facebook. What's left ? They only allow me to ramp up my profle so much here.

Fetlife?