My Space Delivers Bad News on Gonzales and Iraq

What do you do if you are a huge media conglomerate and you own the largest social network website in the world? You offer voter-driven news on the site, that's what. I have often wondered what the heck Rupert Murdock would be doing with MySpace and now we know.

It really is pure genius, this plan of his. MySpace will showcase news headlines from all over the internet on all kinds of subjects. But here is the kicker: it will also allow users to vote on the stories, determining their popularity. It was also disclosed news items from the parent company, News Corp, will not receive any preferential treatment.

They don't have to, and this is the amazing part of this whole thing: they will know what news items are more popular that day. By about five or six pm on the East Coast, Fox News can look at MySpace and now they know what to cover on say, Bill O'Reilly. Out on the West Coast, it could help the late news broadcasts. The other networks and news sources could also use this to their advantage in other ways as well. Brilliant!

Just goes to show how two completely unrelated things can have incredible synergy and massive business potential. It also highlights how MySpace is slowly turning into the world's largest marketing test group. Again, pure genius!

As much as I think it will just make the news more about the popular stories and not the important ones, it would be what a sizable percentage of people are interested in. And if it gets people to read the news more often, that is always a good thing.

So what's the bad news? It pushes us more to the keyword-driven world of news and opinions. It's crazy when you think about it, to write on the internet you have to use popular words, but not too many. Too little and down goes your chances for exposure and potential income. You want to cover a popular topic, but you don't want to be the twenty-eighth person to do so. Anna Nicole Smith anyone?

But that's not as bad as what it teaches young aspiring writers, that their own personal style and ability is not as important as the right words or the story of the day. It is imperative future reporters learn about the craft and developing it. Pretty soon anyone will be popular just because they used lots of popular phrases. People will forget all about a good story and go with what's hot right now.

Am I doing the same thing? Hey, I'm not the one on trial here, unlike Alberto Gonzales. I'm not in charge of a deteriorating situation in Iraq. So if you indict me, are you not also indicting the entire United States of America? I for one, will not stand for this! I am out of here!

Umm, before I go, what was that website for checking keyword density again?