A few years ago, when joining Facebook was still as exclusive as pledging a fraternity and Myspace was de rigeur, the profile picture was worth a thousand words.

It said so much about who one believed him- or herself to be, and marked a movement for everyday folks to consider their personal brand in an impersonal world. A profile didn’t have much biographical text or enough space to let members push boundaries, so that picture was key. It was a badge of honor sometimes, and sometimes a mark of authenticity, regardless of whether or not the person it identified matched their advertised persona. Sometimes it can link directly to employment—American Apparel (in)famously requires that all applicants for in-store positions submit photos of themselves, for example.

Once social networks got more open, the reverse was the case. Photos of nights of excess and debauchery are easily tracked and can sink a person professionally as well as personally. Because of privacy settings, that’s all controllable. But what’s beyond your control? Let’s ask Kim Kardashian and Morgan Freeman.

The reality show starlet’s getting litigious this week because she believes a clothes ad features her look-alike suggestively endorsing the brand on her behalf. What do you think? Does she have a point? Does she have a case?

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What can we learn from the disintegration of MySpace – just five years ago a media darling and now in the tech industry’s dustbin?  It would be easy to blame the fall on inept management, except that the company’s leaders clearly were not dumb.  Rather, the seeds of demise were laid in the company’s using four traditional approaches to business in a new market where rapid change required different thinking:

Exploiting opportunity fast. When MySpace was founded in 2003, the social networking space was exploding.  The company believed that it needed to get big fast, and so it pulled whatever levers it could to grow.  Its parent company, eUniverse, had a list of 20 million e-mails which it used liberally to publicize the service.  The site attracted masses of teens, but their shared interests revolved around passions like favorite bands and movie stars.  Facebook moved in a more focused way, because it had to.  Mark Zuckerberg in his dorm room lacked a corporate parent with deep pockets, so he focused tightly on a market he understood – college students.  Students on a campus had a lot more in common than a passion for Justin Timberlake, and so they had more to share on the network.  While Facebook had far fewer users than MySpace in its early days, those users were clustered in a way that gave the site a critical mass to make it compelling.  Counter-intuitively, in a new market the winners focus tightly on a foothold customer even if they constitute a small portion of the total pie up for grabs.  By starting small, they can move quickly to commercialize their idea.  They can also learn rapidly from this foothold and adjust accordingly.

Leveraging infrastructure. MySpace came to market quickly in part because it used a software development platform called ColdFusion.  Facebook, by contrast, used open source tools which took longer to deploy.  Unfortunately for MySpace, ColdFusion provided the company with an inflexible technical infrastructure.  When threats emerged like spam and phishing, MySpace was slow to respond.  The accountants love to leverage fixed costs in a company, and MySpace was not about to tear up its infrastructure to get more flexible.  Alas, adaptability is one of the biggest advantages a company can have in a new market, and that doesn’t show up on an accountant’s spreadsheet.  Facebook could move with the speed of the emerging industry, while MySpace could not.

Catering to lead customers. Some of the earliest users of MySpace felt comfortable with technology (no surprise there), and they wanted to configure their pages to reflect their individuality.  Bands wanted to appear distinct too.  But most people aren’t tech-heads or rock stars, and the jumble of page appearances was confusing to users just getting oriented to social media.  Facebook had a far more consistent look-and-feel.  Zuckerberg was designing for the masses, not for the most vocal and atypical early adopters.

Take the money on the table. If people were visiting MySpace, the company was going to be sure to claim all the advertising dollars their usage could support.  It was not going to make other start-ups rich.  This is often good practice in established markets, where there is a fixed pie of profit of fight over.  In new markets, the real battle is to generate consumption.  Facebook opened up its platform to application developers like Zynga, and it benefitted hugely even while these upstarts raked in huge revenues.  Established markets can be zero-sum games, whereas new markets are about positive sums.
Ultimately, MySpace fell victim to hubris.  Chasing after market leadership, it moved too fast, too confidently, and too traditionally.  Facebook was more focused, adaptable, and open to fresh thinking.  With a market value now roughly 2,000 times that of MySpace, Facebook has proven the value of using new rules in new markets.

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Social networking sites have become one of the thriving internet networks almost covering half of the world population. Myspace alone has over 50 million users and other sites like hi5, orkut too have reasonable number of users in their part. These 50 million users on Myspace are almost ready to connect to everyone that comes in their way. Initially, Myspace was supposed to be a site focused to teenagers but now everyone can be found hanging out in Myspace. A person in Myspace is better known by his or her Myspace layout. The more different your Myspace layout is, the more it will make you stand out from the crowd. Myspace layout creates a brand for the user. When you open your account in Myspace you are opening up to those 50 million users who would probably want to connect with you. Myspace layout is your face on the Internet.

Myspace layout is easy to create and sets the mood for your profile. When you signup at Myspace you will be given all the tools and options to edit your profile. When you modify everything, a layout is created and it contains all the information provided by you. When you join up with other people they will first see your profile and your Myspace layout is shown every time anyone views your profile. Myspace layout is typically made to show your information. You can edit your layout to suit your mood or attitude. Each Myspace layout is different from one another, since every individual wants a different design for his Myspace layout.

A Myspace layout will always have a header where you can add all those titles or headings about yourself. You can put a simple slogan in these places or add any quotes. You also get a place to add your information and give your contact info. There are many Myspace resource sites where you can obtain a free Myspace layout to pimp out your profile. You can add a whole plethora of options and add-on to make your Myspace layout look flashy and alot more active. You get more friends and have more success in Myspace only when you have a good Myspace layout. It is the main key to your success in Myspace. The type of design, color, images, tools, etc. you use in your Myspace layout shows your personality and there are lots of places where you can find images and designs that suit your attitude and personality and almost all of them are free. There are tons of websites and forums where you can find free graphics and design codes which you can use in your Myspace layout. You can use different combinations of images and designs to make your Myspace layout look different from others.

There are tons of cool Myspace layouts but you cannot use just any one of them. Get a Myspace layout and customize it according to your choice. If you don’t customize, your blog won’t look unique and will look just like everyone else’s. You don’t have to be a HTML guru to learn the tricks of customizing Myspace layouts. The sites where you get Myspace layouts will most probably offer you tips and tricks to add those Myspace layout codes into your profile. You can find step by step tutorials on customizing your Myspace layout and all of these things are available for free.

Myspace can be a very beneficial place for people who can use it to its full power. You can make your own brand and get self recognition. It can also help you in getting business proposals and you can also get huge traffic for your website from Myspace. Just leave your website URL in your profile and add lots of users into your network. To achieve all this you need a solid Myspace layout that is different and helps in building a brand for you.

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Digital media executive Deep Malhotra, who was senior director at MySpace (India and South-East Asia) in 2010, has launched an incubation facility called Gemini New Media Ventures. Set up with an investment of $1 million, the 4,500 sq. ft. facility is located in Chembur, Mumbai, and will be fully operational in two months. The 40-seat plug-and-play office will also offer administration, IT and legal support.

The company is accepting applications and expects 150 start-ups to register. Of these, 20 will be invited to present their ideas to mentors and finally, five will be picked to work in the facility.

“Internet entrepreneurs today face challenges due to poor Internet infrastructure and low risk appetite. Educating advertisers and the industry is also difficult, and more avenues for monetisation beyond advertisements should be explored,” said Deep Malhotra, founder & managing partner of Gemini New Media Ventures, as he spoke to Techcircle.in.

Malhotra believes that for a start-up, having a concrete business plan is not vital. “The difference between angel investors here and those in the Silicon Valley, according to me, is in the way they start out. Those in the Valley do not look for revenues up front. Look at Twitter – they haven’t figured out a revenue stream yet! So I believe what is required is a kick-ass product,” he says.

According to him, marketing is also unnecessary. “There is too much focus today on marketing the product. Take Bigadda, for example. They spent a lot of money, but could not generate revenues from it. No one is focusing on the product itself, why it is required and how to reach out to the audience.”
E-commerce, mobile application development and mobile services are the top areas of interest, said Malhotra. So far, 15 applications have been received, including a start-up that develops mobile phone apps for rural India.

On the filters for selecting the entrepreneurs, Malhotra said, “We will look for start-ups with ideas which can be taken to the next level. And it should be able to raise an angel round or VC fund after three-six months.” Gemini will seek to acquire minority stakes in the start-ups, once they raise a VC round of funding.

Currently, the team is in talks with international investors to mentor the start-ups and it will launch a mentor list next week. It is also in the process of raising $200,000 from investors in the real estate sector to run the operations.

Incidentally, Malhotra began with small stints at Jasubhai Media and Hungama Digital Entertainment, and then launched an online creativity magazine called OnMag.com, which was live between 2002 and 2004. But it could not survive the dotcom bubble burst as he could not raise funding beyond the angel round.
Malhotra then joined Rediff.com (India), focusing on banner advertising, CPM and online advertising. In 2005, he got an opportunity to be a part of Google’s founding team in India and was one of the first to join its direct sales division, heading its New Delhi and Mumbai units. At MySpace India, he focused on social media marketing till 2010 and then had a few stints with UTV's new media team, helping out with their online monetisation strategy.

Gemini will differ from other incubators such as Microsoft Tech Spark or those set up by angel funds and B-schools by introducing an 80:20 rule, where start-ups can help each other in the 20 per cent time spent in the facility.

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Remember Tom? You should, he was your first friend on MySpace. He left the social media fossil back in 2009, but his departure from MySpace wasn't the end of his presence online. In a recent viral video, Rooster Teeth (the brilliant minds behind "Red vs. Blue") spoofs the whole MySpace versus Facebook fight, painting Tom Anderson as an unemployed man living in the glory days. The video, which has over 160,000 views, suggests that Google + is going to do to Facebook what Facebook did to MySpace. Instead of taking offense, Anderson tweeted the hilarious video; however, some people took his tweet a little too seriously.

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Will rival search engines do to Google what Facebook did to MySpace?  That's possible after US antitrust regulators last month started investigations against the search engine for abusing its dominant market position, say experts. The US action is the second antitrust investigation against the search engine after the EU launched first such action against Google last year.

"Google's position is more precarious than it first appears. If consumers and advertisers decide that Google's methods are biased or it has dropped the ball, defection to (Microsoft's) Bing or elsewhere could follow rapidly - witness the migration from MySpace to Facebook,'' says Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington. Criticizing antitrust investigations against Google, he says in an article in the Vancouver Sun that US action against the search engine will undermine competition.

"Rivals claim that Google manipulates its search results to disfavour competitors' offerings and bolster its own properties. How Google ranks sites or steers traffic is its own prerogative. Yet even if it were to 'unfairly' favour its own properties, it cannot escape the ruthless market consequences of those actions, as competitors would be ready to exploit its folly,'' says Wayne in the article written jointly with Alberto Mingardi , director general of Instituto Bruno Leoni in Milan, Italy. The authors say government intervention will undermine healthy competition.

"Competing search engines like Microsoft's Bing are gaining ground. Others could be created by alliances among firms, should it come to that. It wasn't long ago that many of us were 'locked in' to the Yahoo and AltaVista search engines. The very emergence of Google would have been impossible if antitrust enforcers' vision of Internet market share were true.''

The authors say if US antitrust investigations create the impression among consumers and advertisers that Google's methods are biased, "defection to Bing or elsewhere could follow rapidly - witness the migration from MySpace to Facebook.''MySpace was the most popular social networking site till 2008 when Facebook overtook it.

According to the authors, "Google's market power derives from consumers choosing to use it. To forcibly deny that choice is wrong in its own right and short-circuits the competitive process that yields consumer feedback and keeps companies on their toes.''Google last month received a formal notification from the US Federal Trade Commission ( FTC )) that it has begun a review of its business.

"It's still unclear exactly what the FTC's concerns are, but we are clear about where we stand. Since the beginning, we have been guided by the idea that, if we focus on the user, all else will follow,'' the Mountain View , California-based search engine has said in its reaction to the antitrust notification.

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Myspace is a renowned social network website that features millions of users. There are people using myspace for different reasons that range from personal matters to business contacts. Whatever be the reason, myspace is the only social network website where you can keep changing the layouts to express your mood. So, it is very much necessary to keep your profile in Myspace enhances which can easily be done by choosing from the thousands of free Unique myspace layouts.

Being Unique at Myspace

There would be a number of myspace users viewing your profile everyday. You now just have to imagine that you have unique myspace layout that greets them with lots of images. This is the time when unique myspace layouts would come handy. You are given the authority of choosing unique myspace layouts of different graphics and designs. These layouts enable you to showcase what your like and also provide the users with something appealing and welcoming. Apart from this, the most important fact is that not a single user would be bored to visit the site or profile. In case of businessmen who are using myspace for business promotions, their profile would surely use unique myspace layouts. If any visitor would view any unique myspace layouts, they would surely remember the same and would become your loyal clients.

Being Popular Using Unique Myspace Layouts

All of the free myspace accounts are actually provided with the same and boring profile layout which has nothing that can get the attention of other users. These default myspace layouts would definitely fail to express your personality and so to help you personalize your profile, there are a number of custom and pre made unique myspace layouts available. The new people at myspace can start using basis designs and can seek help from myspace designers who would help you get unique myspace layouts with flash layouts for you profile. The most important fact about myspace is that if your profile looks the same like others, then you are surely to be unnoticed among the million users.

Using Unique Myspace Layouts

Once you have found unique myspace layouts that would express your personal personality, it is also important to use it on your myspace profile. These layouts are basically associated with a code and all you need to do is just place this code in your myspace profile. You just have to place the unique myspace layouts in the ‘About Me’ area of your profile and your unique myspace layout would be updated to be used.

There are a number of websites that offer you tons of unique myspace layouts to distinguish you profile from others. You can choose from these unique myspace layouts according to your interest and one that would best match your profile. However, there are also a few websites that let you create your unique myspace layouts as you just have to specify what exactly you need for your profile. Once you have found the most unique myspace layouts, you can update your profile which would surely improve your myspace profile.

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Pimpin Your Premade Myspace Page Layout

A social networking website. Myspace gives you your space to create your personalized profile. This calls for innovative designs and specialized creations that allow you to differentiate your space from those of others.Thi's calls for a premade myspace layout.This attracts more people to your space and increases your network. And may tend boost your friends to the Myspace Pimp Level.

At Freakin Premade Myspace Layouts

We are a definitive online resource for layouts, graphics, codes, generators, tricks and tweaks that can be used in Myspace anytime. With the resources  you can pimp your space on Myspace.com. There are various sites that offer you the requisite tools to customize your page on Myspace. As more and more users register themselves on Myspace, the need for personalization of personal pages. With Freakin Premade Myspace Layouts you can find and create magic on the pages allotted to you. You will get pre made layouts, codes, innovative graphic and much more.

Premade Myspace Backgrounds

Undoubtedly, making your own webpage on the Internet is no longer a matter of knowledge and skill. However, it is still a matter of increasing interest.  Joining sites like myspace has become a very popular pursuit among people who cherish the benefits of staying up-to-date with the latest, cutting-edge tools of communication. In addition, you can take pleasure in adjusting your "myspace layouts" according to your liking. Widely available codes, music, and layouts myspace tools  will help you enjoy your myspace graphics and allow you to give it that personal touch of your own .

Myspace layouts and backgrounds can cover a whole array of themes. Do you like music, pimps,tools, girls? Do you have a preference for a certain Rap or rock star, for a certain type of car? Basically, with myspace graphics you can have any of these themes and more to build the desired myspace backgrounds.  Your friends will seeyour profile with interest if you improve your premade myspace layouts or backgrounds. Anyone can do it. Due to myspace graphics editors always at hand, the way your page looks is just a matter of getting a code and applying it in your profile.

Myspace also has many special exclusive events, which are featured regularly. Now, many of the new and well established artists, musicians, and comedians, view Myspace. So what are you going do? Well, you will probably look on all these myspace layout sites. There is surely something interesting that you will find, but you are limited only. So now there's no excuse left for having a crapy myspace layout. Improve it and your friends will come.

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