myspace

my myspace and msplinks related traffic doubled today. it must be that school's been out for a while and they're getting bored.

Note: Myspace recently changed the way they make msplinks. This tool prob'ly doesn't work anymore...

a while back i mentioned that MySpace and msplinks do dirty things to links.

this bugs me a bit, so i've been trying to figure out ways to mess with 'em. i've got nothing good so far, but in the process i noticed that MySpace doesn't generate a new link for each address (like TinyURL, for example). instead they encode the address in the msplinks url. so an address can be encoded into a msplink even if MySpace has never seen that address before.

while i was playing with msplinks, i created a converter. put any url into it, and it'll spit out a msplinks address. i haven't figured out anything particularly devious to use it for yet, but if you come up with something let me know.

have fun kids :-)

msplinks address converter after the jump.

MySpace has been redirecting all external links in comments through msplinks.com for a couple of months. Msplinks turns any posted link into a redirect, supposedly in an attempt to cut down on spammer redirects and phishing.

From Tom:

Hey everybody, we just launched another program to stop dirty spammers from hasseling[sic] you. When you input a link in myspace it may be converted to a redirect link.... They still point to their original url, but let us easily turn off links to spam, phishing, or virus sites. booyah!

Until a week or so ago, only links in comments were redirected through msplinks. This fit well with the explanation given in Tom's message. Now external links in profiles are redirected through msplinks as well. The effects of this change are drastic and somewhat sinister.

if you've visited my myspace profile recently, you've noticed that it doesn't look much like a standard myspace profile. which i'm pretty stoked about, since the hideousness of most myspace profiles approaches obscenity.

one key element in the makeover of my space is the blog. you see, i have way too many blogs already, so i really don't want to post to all of them. and i usually just end up crossposting everything from my regular blog to the myspace blog.

so i replaced it.

the first generation myspace blog replacement was pretty sweet. i wrote a flash based RSS reader that would check my personal blog for new posts, and display them on the 'space. but the powers that be decided that flash files shouldn't be able to link to offsite pages. so the "read more" links didn't actually work.

so we try it again. enter myspace blog replacement, generation two. this one's really rad.

Give it another go after the jump.

Artists and bands can now produce their own music on a laptop with a realistic budget and fantastic results. They can take charge of their own promotion and distribution through MySpace, Last.fm and Indiestore. The digital music revolution has lowered music production costs to almost nothing. So why does the music industry still hold so tightly to their feudalistic business model and unrealistic constraints? Why do artists still only receive pennies on the dollar for iTunes Music Store sales? Why are boxed sets of music which was bought and paid for over fifty years ago still being sold for upwards of $40 when the cost to the record label is really less than $4? MySpace et al. are in a position to cripple this prehistoric beast of an industry. We're watching a revolution happen, and I couldn't be more excited.