myspace?.?

WARNING: This article may integrate some technobabble. Viewer discretion is advised.

In other words, if you have no HTML or CSS experience at all then I’m sorry to say but you’re at least a month away from writing up your own MySpace layout codes from scratch.

On the other hand, if you do have a great deal of HTML and CSS experience then here are the fundamentals on how to do this:

First of all –for the uninitiated– MySpace is a social networking internet site where you may set up your own free home page and through that you may interact with over 100 million other MySpace users. You do this by browsing around their profile pages, leaving comments, sending messages or bulletins, adding ‘friends’ and in general just having a typical web 2.0 chit-chatty good time.

A ‘MySpace layout’ is a block of CSS code that may be applied to change the background, fonts, table borders and other distinct features of your MySpace profile page. Although widely available throughout the net and free for the taking, it seems to me (from the truckloads of emails I get) that some are unclear as to precisely what goes into the making of a MySpace layout.

Officially, a MySpace layout is a hack. The block of CSS code which constitutes a MySpace layout is an embedded stylesheet which, according to W3C standards, is supposed to be inserted in the HTML document head. However, MySpace does not permit it’s users to access the document head of their profile pages. When you install a MySpace layout by inserting the layout code into the ‘About Me’ text box on your MySpace account’s ‘Edit Profile’ screen, you are placing the embedded stylesheet in the HTML document body instead. Somehow, shortly after MySpace’s inception, somebody came across that, hey, you may jam an embedded stylesheet into an HTML document body and it will still work. Well, to heck with web standards, away we go (and so begun an entire industry).

So that’s the long and short of it.

Your MySpace layout code will commence out with a set of opening and closing STYLE tags like this:

…

…in amid which will go all your CSS selectors and rule sets applied to grab control of and custommake all the respective HTML parts on your MySpace page.

So now you have this:

css selector {rule set}

css selector {rule set}

And incisively what selectors ought to you use? Ahh, well this is where the fun part comes in and is fundamentally beyond the scope of this article. But I may feed you a couple or three pointers to get you started.

Tables From Here to Eternity

The primary thing you will have to recognise right off the bat is the default MySpace HTML code is a web standards guru nightmare in that it holds when it comes to eight bazillion nested tables. Also, be advised that all hash marks (#) are filtered out of user input so using ID selectors is not possible. You may notwithstanding use class selectors. Here’s a list of some of the CSS class names employed in the default MySpace template to aid get you started making your own MySpace layout:

navigationBar – MySpace header menu, i.e., “Home, Browse, Search…”

profileInfo – Basic Info table (contains user display pic)

contactTable – Contacting [username] table

userProfileURL – MySpace URL

interestsAndDetails – Interests table

userProfileDetail – Details table

userProfileSchool – Schools table

userProfileNetworking -Networking table

extendedNetwork – Extended Network table

latestBlogEntry – Blog Entry table

blurbs - Blurbs table

friendSpace – Friend Space table

friendsComments – Comments table

Many of these class names were not long ago added to the MySpace template so consider yourself lucky if you’re just getting into the layout making biz. Prior to this, MySpace layout makers were obliged to fill their layout codes with ridiculously long CSS descendant selectors, such as “table table table table div div”, etc, in order to target specific elements on a MySpace page.

MySpace Filters

With regards to filters, there are a number of other characters besides the hash mark which are mechanically filtered out by the Cold Fusion script which processes MySpace user input. The filtering of the hash mark also makes it rather precarious to use hexadecimal color codes as without the required # character, using sure hexadecimal color codes will cause a great deal of major malfunctions with the display of your MySpace page. To be perfectly sure your color codes won’t make your page go haywire, you’ll have to use CSS RGB color notation instead, e.g., background-color: rgb(255,255,255).

Here’s a list of everything that I’m conscious of that gets filtered out of MySpace layout code:

• Hash marks #
• HTML comments
• CSS comments
• HTML iframe element
• CSS z-index property
• All Javascript

Tips and Tricks

Number one, I highly commend that you install Firefox (if you haven’t already) and then install Chris Pederick’s Web Developer extension. The Outline function in this extension will be a vast aid in figuring out the hierarchy of nested tables in the default MySpace HTML code.

And number two, do not forget that when you use a descendant selector to target nested tables, you’re potentially (but not always) targetting all other tables nested at a deeper level. So for example, if you use ‘table table table {APPLY THIS RULE SET}’, you’re also potentially applying the same style to tables nested four, five and six levels deep. You’ll find yourself doing a lot of ‘undoing’ as you’re writing up your MySpace layout code to make sure that you only implement styles to elements that you intend to employ them to. Hence, it will be normal to have your MySpace layout code filled with a lot of code that looks like this:

table table table {APPLY THIS RULE SET};

table table table table {UNDO PREVIOUS RULE SET};

And that’s regarding it. The rest you’ll have to learn by just diving right in and mucking about. And don’t forget to check your MySpace page in various dissimilar browsers to make sure it looks the same.

Oh yeah and be prepared to go a little stir crazy.

This is par for the course.

)

Myspace 18

All of us know that users of the Web do not read advertisements on the web sites we visit, yet the online communities are emergent as the next outstanding media rely solely on this method to manufacture revenue. In The Social Network Business Plan, social network expert, David Silver presents and explains 18 cutting-edge methods to create revenue for social network websites–none of which are advertising. He likewise predicts the demise of seemingly successful online communities such as MySpace and Facebook that rely on publicity as non-sustainable modalities. Silver describes and explains that in the future new productions and services will be introduced, talked about, rated, reviewed and commended – or killed – by online communities. One example of the 18 new revenue channels that online communities are adopting is the sale to marketers of anonymized conversations of the community members concerning those vendors’ merchandise or services. Another example is online communities who collaborator with the internet suppliers to receive payment when a peculiar online community’s data is downloaded usinf that suppliers service. The other sixteen revenue channels are evenly head-turning!

Silver is the only angel investor, operating down where the rubber meets the road, who is investing in online communities in their infancy, and writing regarding which ones will win and which ones will fail.

From the Inside FlapDo you read the advertisements that appear on the social networking web web sites you visit? Neither does anybody else! So, why do such hugely successful online communities as MySpace and Facebook rely solely on promotion to create revenue and how long may they survive? Isn’t there any other way for online communities to make money? Actually, there are eighteen other ways!

In The Social Network Business Plan, crusade capital guru and Smart Start-Ups author David Silver reveals eighteen cutting-edge methods for generating income from social networking web sites—none of which implicate advertising, and all of which in truth work.

Silver’s premise is simple: There is a lot of cash to be made by getting smart persons talking in regards to something that has mercantile value and then marketing their anonymized conversations to vendors. He goes on to disclose how all parties gain from these arrangements, who gets salaried and how much, how you get these smart people to begin talking, and why vendors will remunerate to overhear these conversations.

At the core of each winning business model is the recommender online community, arguably the most powerful and disruptive strength to emerge in the data age. These groups have already started out shaking up the advertising, marketing, sales, and public relations industries, and their influence is growing. Social networks are having a tectonic effect on assorted industries by shifting the power from the producer to the customer, or what is known as oligopsony power. Any savvy enterpriser or capitalist who wants to get a jump on this emergent trend needs to perceive the power of these groups and discover ways to tap it. This revolutionary guide helps you do just that. You’ll discover how to:

• Create an graceful online recommender community

• Demonstrate your community’s value to vendors

• Make your enterprise a substitute for all the others

• Operate multiple online recommender communities

• Inspire passion and dedication in your communities

• Maximize your marketing price

Online recommender communities are more than nice little businesses; they are poised to begin filling Fortune 500 slots very, very soon. Read The Social Network Business Plan, and get in on the action before it’s too late.

From the Back CoverPraise for The Social Network Business Plan

“As the leading provider of ‘white label’ social networks, we use David’s book as a conceptual blueprint for designing revenue apps into our software. We agree altogether that conventional advertizing is dead and social advertizing is the future. David’s book gives you a blueprint for succeeding in the future.”
—Bob Crull, founder and CEO, OneSite.com

“Online communities win when they figure out ways to collaborate with their fans to invent productions that may be developed and sold with mutual benefits. David Silver plainly and distinctly explains how social networks may do this. You’ll also learn how this helps companies stay lean by generating cash through multiple channels. This is how great ideas turn little companies into fast syndication companies.”
—Patrick Dillon, cofounder and President, CollarFree.com

“I’ve started, built, and sold assorted web app companies, but social networks have web app companies beat. They cost less than $500,000 to launch, and if you get decent revenue growth, social networks may be sold for twenty times trailing revenues or more. No new industry has ever had these two characteristics that I’m conscious of. David explains how to fetch in revenue quickly through up to eighteen novel revenue channels. It’s a good read.”
—Robin D. Richards, founder and CEO, Notification Technologies, Inc.

“For anybody fascinated in developing, building, and operating a social network, you need David Silver’s book as a flight instruction manual. David brings his wealth of experience in online marketing, technology, and finance to you through the pages of this necessary book.”
—Eric Targan, founder and CEO, BTC Interactive, “the Internet’s primary viral marketer”

About the AuthorDavid Silver is the Pied Piper of social networks, having financed more than a dozen of them, including onesite.com, iboats.com, and collarfree.com, and has consulted for pensiongovernance.com and a good deal of others. Before the social networks wave crashed onto his shore, David provided the early stage capital for ActMedia, Cognition Technologies, Frontier Telecommunications, Intelepeer, TIE/communications, and Victor Kiam’s LBO of Remington Brands, amid more than 600 other entrepreneurial companies.

Myspace 18 Photo

Myspace 18 Pic

Myspace 18 Image

Myspace 18 Pic

Most helpful client reviews

29 of 31 humans found the following review helpful.
Great for those engaged in a struggle to grow or begin their Social Networks
By Tom R
I got this book because I have been engaged in a struggle to grow an online community for the last year. I’ve found that the technology is gorgeous straight forward. However, few books speak to three essentials: 1) delivering gains and wealth to community members, 2) origins of revenue for the community developer besides advertising, and 3) how to genuinely grow the community. David Silver’s book deals very well with the initial two only. That’s why it is only rated 4 stars.

16 of 17 humans found the following review helpful.
only buy if you’re fascinated in “recommender communities”
By splendidmike
Silver may recognise how to make money, but this book suffers from mutual how-to business book flaws: terrible writing, poor research, generalizing anecdotes into international truths, unverifiable claims, wide platitudes and self obsession (he genuinely proposes that you email him your business ideas – his email address is right in the book!). I could deal with all that, because I’ll concede that from time to time perceptive nuggets appear throughout, but the title of the book does not represent what the book is actually about. There are not 18 systems in this book, there is only one – the idea that you may build online social network websites around critiquing mercantile goods and services and that info collected from that website may itself be sold. To me, that counts as 1 strategy, not 18.

8 of 10 persons found the following review helpful.
Mr. Silver knows his business
By D. W. Locke
David Silver takes the whole social networking phenomenon apart and has fun with it all along the way.

See all 64 client reviews…