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Douglas MacMillan is one of the Ninja Hamsters at ADOTAS aka an intern. He previously spent several months working as a dutiful intern under the dictatorship of Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone, only to be set free by our own Kiran. He does not get Jaime skim lattes in the morning.

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MySpace Marketing 101: How To Win Friends And Influence People

Written on
May 24th 2006
Author
by Douglas MacMillan  |
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Final Exam: Is it legal?

Since the MySpace’s initial launch, the site itself has failed to take full advantage of the commercial opportunities inherent in the space, opening the door to smaller advertisers who use auto-friend-making software. However, the many bot applications on the market have proved so effective in cultivating sales that they’ve awoken and alarmed the sleeping giants that operate MySpace. Seeking to lay claim over the markets developed behind their back, MySpace has issued cease-and-desist letters most bot developers and suppliers. They point to their Terms of Service, which can be interpreted in a number of ways:

“Collecting usernames and/or email addresses of Members by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited email or unauthorized framing of or linking to the Website is prohibited.”

The offending “pirates” have for the most part refused to desist, and no major legal dispute has resulted thus far.

“All the software does is automate what a user would normally do to build their profile,” Sean Percival, CEO of FriendFetch, contends to ADOTAS. Friendfetch has stood by this reasoning even after receiving numerous cease and desist letters from MySpace.

One popular software package that has managed to avoid harassment by site operators is Friend Adder Pro. “I have never received any cease and desist letters from MySpace and I don’t ever expect to because it is difficult for them to track Friend Adder Pro,” Friend Adder Pro’s CEO tells ADOTAS. “Friend Adder Pro acts as a real person would in sending the friend requests, sending messages, and posting comments.”

MySpace has attempted to install security measures to filter out bot activity on their site, such as the CAPTCHA system last October, but the applications have consistently countered with their own advancements. “This (security) image contains a combination of letters and numbers and asks the user to enter it in text box before the friend request/message/comment can be sent,” he says. “However, we are constantly developing new ways to bypass this feature.”

While this technological chess match continues indefinitely, it is unclear whether MySpace will ultimately put its full energy toward legally eliminating mass marketing from its site.

The situation is certainly beginning to echo the evolution of the email marketing channel, where many spammers who were once considered intrusive and unlawful struck deals which legitimated their business. MySpace may have something to learn from companies such as AOL, whose new Certified Email program has helped them turn a profit from and put a leash on the mass marketers that flooded their space.

“They want to protect themselves, which is understandable,” Friendfetch’s Percival says of MySpace. “However, the site’s founder has mentioned that the site was made for people to network, so hopefully there is middle ground somewhere there.”



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Reader Comments.

Friend Adder Pro is by far the best one! The link they put in the article seems to be wrong though. http://www.friendadderpro.com

Sweet article!

Frank

Posted by Frank | 6:35 pm on June 5, 2006.

Great article. I’ve used a few of them, and I find Friend Adder Pro probably the quickest with the CAPTCHA update, but I am now stuck on Adder Robot as it does much more.

By the way, http://friendadderpro.com/ is an illegal copy they are selling fo $12 which is a rip off from Myspace Suite. http://www.ocommunity.net/

Posted by Jesse | 3:29 am on June 7, 2006.

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