myspace page worth it?
 

Right now, I have my own site hosted by Ipower. Because I'm not into social networking, I haven't created a myspace page, either as a filmmaker or as a regular dude. If anyone here has a myspace page, as a filmmaker, does it help draw attention to you from the "powers that be"? Or is it just another person shouting to be heard in a digital wasteland that's already overpopulated?

It's very much like the bands pages. IMO, you pretty much have to whore yourself out to get any recognition, and people get annoyed at it. I have one, and it's a bit of a waste of time. Though, the quality of their compression isn't as bad as some (i.e. youtube)

I don't have one, and honestly, I don't like myspace.
I think the design is terrible, the layout is always very chaotic, and it's annoying to read them properly. I really don't understand the big myspace hype, exept that I can see how it gives some bands recognition, although many people add people just to show themselves...

I think it's much better to invest energy in a normal decent website...

I put one up a long time ago JUST to say I have one. Other than that I try to keep our "real" webpage up to date. MySpace, IMHO, is a bloated, slow, POS. It's great for people wanting to yap at each other or for bands to collect as many "friends" as possible, but aside that, what's the point....?

That's what I figured. . .but you always here how people get discovered in the strangest ways, like Youtube, so I thought I'd ask. Yes, I just rebuilt my website from the ground up in Iweb, and it's about 100 times slicker looking now, in addition to being much easier to update.

http://www.joshbass.com

I have noticed that most "real" movies have a myspace page, which is another reason I asked. I assume that's also because the people in charge KNOW there will be an audience that will flock to the page, rather than someone like me simply trying to FIND an audience. As for the movie files themselves, I could always just put a still with a link to where it's hosted on my site, and bypass the compression issue.

If you have enough business, why bother with myspace? if you are sitting around trying to figure out how to get business, why not try myspace? myspace is free, if you get one customer from it, it would be worth it. if you already have a website, you can copy a lot of the html to myspace, it doesnt take much to set one up. whats the upside potential? more business. whats the downside risk? you waste a couple hours setting it up.

True dat. I'll looksy into it.

I am the other way around. I hate making webpages with a passion. So while I wait for that to be handled by someone else, I set up a myspace page which allows you to still contact your actors, crew, etc, have a central hub for them to check out updates etc, all without having to mass email everyone every time you upload an image. Its also a way for people to be more inclined to follow a project as you can post bulletins that show on all your friends main log in page, so instead of thinking every week, I wonder how joshbass.com is doing, they may just see your bulletin saying "new pictures updated" and then check it out. Just my thoughts.

Gotcha. Good point.

Social Networking sites can be a tremendous value if you market yourself properly and realize it is a NETWORKING site.

I would definately consider starting one or two of them (Facebook and MS)

Links make the world (Internet) go round.

Free space on a huge networking site? Heck yeah.

Ok, it's been especially slow in freelance land (which is all I do right now), so with all this extra time on my hands, I think I'm going to do one of these.

I'm confused, though. You have plain old myspace, and then Myspace Film. What's the difference? I don't really care about the social networking aspect, just using it as another site to promote my works. Is the Film site preferable for that? Is there a difference?

Also, can you simply embed a video hosted elsewhere? Since I already have my own site, can I embed the videos that already up there, and have myspace point to them?

It's just sort of one of those things you do because every bit helps. Take a few minutes to set it up and then just make sure to check it every once in a while. When people hear about something they search youtube and myspace more often now.

I was going to, but I wondered if anyone here knew whether it would be more effective to set up a regular myspace page, or use the Myspace Film page. . .they seem similar, yet different.