It's the exact same way Facebook became the social networking site for college students. If enough people think a site is cool, they will tell their friends and the cycle repeats over and over. There is actually a very interesting article on Wikipedia about the Network Effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
cool to see another nz'der alot of nz bands and radio presenters use myspace.. always hearing myspace urls on 95.0 (BFM) in auckland myspace has been around for a while now.. always adding new features.. taken some away.. after the recent blog exposure and popularity i believe myspace and blogspot got all the traffic.. then the spammers joined and all made sites
I definately think they will last a long time. They're millionares, as soon as they see people getting disinterested, they'll pull a marketing scheme. Whether it's a new feature, (iframes please =P) or commercials (which I haven't seen).
i think that marketed by "word of mouth" and some teanager makes popular, because they will talk in school about that..if they know something about online.
One word, Kids! One kid runs across it, and says to their buddy, hey this is cool, you should join and become my friend, w/e. Gossipy kids and school = fast track to the word of mouth success. I think myspace was a great idea, and im surprised nobody (when it was starting) jacked the idea and make it better. Myspace is proof that word of mouth does work. ^^^ holy crap! 580 mill, can you say a couple happy guys?