MySpace Safety: E-Commerce to the Rescue

For months, concerns about the content and audience of the social networking site MySpace have been expressed by parents, school officials, law enforcement authorities, and the media. However, amid pressure from these groups, it may be a financial motivation that ultimately leads MySpace to "clean house."

MySpace is one of the ten most popular destinations on the Web. Claiming 69 million members, it is certainly the best-known and most-visited social networking site. As such, it is uniquely situated for commercial exploitation, as any number of bands, comedians, and other entertainers can attest.

However, to make MySpace a truly profitable venture, as News Corporation must surely have intended when it paid $580 million for the site, it must appeal to traditional advertisers with larger budgets. Those advertisers are unlikely to pay for placement on a site that has been called a