CIL2007 — My Space, the Evil Twin of Web 2.0

Susan Geiger of Moreau Catholic High School in the Bay Area of California was the next presenter.

She focused on demystifying MySpace and how she was able to do that for the parents in her school.

She demonstrated that MySpace is a serious time sink that even if you try to block it, there are numerous proxy MySpace servers out there.

MySpaces demographic is aging. Not with youths staying away from the site but more adults joining MySpace.

Most enlightening was her reality check of online sexual predators. She provided evidence that many of the solicitations to teens came from other teens.

She then went into a description of MySpace itself and how educators, schools, YA authors, employers and prospective colleges are using MySpace to reach a broader audience.

She also touched on SMS messaging practices of her students. She mentioned a site called NetLingo which lists some of today’s acronyms for IM’s and Text messaging. Of course the list is probably obsolete.

She encouraged every education and librarian in the room to get on MySpace and play and even start their own MySpace/Social Networking page to keep up with teens and not as vintage adults.