Curtains Up!

Here’s the bottom line: MySpace is free, so it can’t necessarily hurt.

But whether it will actually benefit you really depends on what you do, and how much time and effort you’d like to invest in your MySpace presence. For musicians, comedians, magicians, singers and performers and live entertainers of every genre, a MySpace page can be a useful tool, leading to networking opportunities and resulting in real work. But an effective MySpace page takes maintenance: contacting potential “friends”, posting fresh material, responding to messages and friend requests and making your page look just the way you’d like it to takes daily effort.

MySpace offers customization so you can choose themes and colors, and there are hundreds of websites that also allow you to download themes and graphics to use on your page. Just do a google search for “MySpace themes” and you’ll have a plethora of beautifying options. There’s no shortage of trash to navigate through though on MySpace, and there are solicitors, spammers and con artists around every corner. Just stick to visiting pages on MySpace that look legit– if you are unsure about a page, leave it be.

When you first set up your page, the novelty of connecting with mega-superstars is exciting. “Dolly Parton accepted me as a friend on MySpace!!” But the novelty is short-lived when you understand that Dolly herself probably never saw your friend request, never visited your page, and didn’t actually hear your music or gaze at your photos, and that an intern or her second cousin Nancy is manning her MySpace ship. Or worse, that the Dolly Parton who is now your best friend on MySpace is actually a poser running a MySpace fan page, someone with no personal connection whatsoever to Ms. Parton.

So while it’s fun to contact the stars, focus your friend-making efforts on those who make sense from a networking or fan base angle. Post comments on pages, send personalized messages, but don’t oversell and don’t harass.

As I said, it doesn’t cost anything, so spend a couple hours playing around with it and see what happens. At worst, you’ll have a friend in us.