Add the Stick-It Note Application to MySpace

Here is the flash version of my video that explains how to add the Stick-It Note application to your MySpace page.

http://blip.tv/file/1508751

How to Add an Application in MySpace

This video shows how to add the Stick-It Notes Application to your MySpace page.

Click the link below to watch the video.

http://www.screencast.com/users/ljscils598f08/folders/Default/media/22446edd-1148-4078-819a-0ce4e0a8f470
**Apologies for the lag, which slows down the video. I find MySpace to be a very slow website.

Boyd Readings

After reading Boyd's articles, I believe that libraries should realize that there are hundreds of social networking sights (SNS) that support a wide range of interests and practices. One size does NOT fit all. In the article Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, she speaks of the shift in the organization of online communities. "While websites dedicated to communities of interest still exist and prosper, SNSs are primarily organized around people, not interests." Facebook and MySpace are the two popular ones, but other SNS were created to support niche demographics. This information will help them to decide which SNS to market themselves on if they are interested in doing so.

Another factor could be how socio-economic class differentiates which SNS a student uses. In the article Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace, Boyd discusses this. She states that "MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm." But, Facebook seems to be dominated by the primarily white "good kids whose families seem to emphasize the importance of education and going to college."

Becoming part of a social network is a way that libraries can integrate themselves into their patrons' everyday lives by promoting their library services on the patrons' social networks.
They can also learn from seeing what sites their patrons are visiting online and gain insight into their interests, needs, and wants. Another invaluable tool of these sites, according to Meredith Farkas in her book Social Software in Libraries is that these sites often "let you search for members by geographic area or by institution, making it easy to find local people." This also helps the libraries because they are then building a presence where there patrons are.

In addition marketing themselves on such sites, libraries can use this topic as a springboard to educating their patrons, both parents and children, about online safety on these SNS. They can include such things as potential privacy concerns and the safety of younger users. This can open discussions between parents and children about SNS usage "rules" and the concept of online predators.

What Makes Services Like MySpace or Facebook "Sticky"?

According to Wikipedia, Sticky content refers to content published on a website, which has the purpose of getting a user to return to that particular website or hold their attention and get them to spend longer periods of time at that site. Both MySpace and Facebook have achieved this and have actually become quite addictive to many that use them. They spend many hours during the day not only looking up, looking through, and checking things out on the site, but they also make multiple return trips to the site.


I believe this is so because they offer a space that you can make your own. You can change the layout and the "skin" of it and add various widgets and applications that you like. In checking out both sites, I found myself, who truly believes that MySpace and Facebook should be left to the young, looking for things that I could add because they have so many different things to customize your page. You can find games to add, music to add, videos, and pictures to add. You can add friends that you already have or find friends that you haven't spoken to in ages.


I think most of the appeal to teenagers is that they have a place they can make all their own. No one tells them what they can or cannot put on it or what it has to look like. It is a virtual hangout and a place where they can be themselves or, for good or bad, whoever they want to be. They can share their music and pictures and "talk" with their friends. They can play games either by themselves or with others. They return often to see what their friends have added to their wall or what comments they have made on something they wrote.


Overall, I agree that they are both very "sticky" sites that do make you want to keep coming back. It is those little extras that have you saying to yourself, "well, let me just check it ONE more time before I shut down the computer." I also think that the fact that other people are constantly on and off these sites also makes you look to see who is there and what they are adding to their pages, or to yours. These sites also link to just about everything you could want to do online, which makes it very easy to use. It's like "one stop shopping" which makes it very addictive. You can go to these sites, have fun, and interact with others, while still doing what you want to do.