DISQUS

Frank, I've been also looking for an alternative to MySpace, which is really pretty low-end and crass in general. This comes after just having spend (wasted?) hours creating my own page over the past few days (and thank you Pete and Kelvin for the useful info here on your site).

I kinda got sucked in and hyper-focused, but after perusing around, I see that the demographic is teens and early 20's largely, and while that's cute and good, I don't belong here! You throw Murdoch's involvement in (I had forgotten), and I'm on my way out.

I hope there's an easy way to migrate my "content", but to...where. Here's a list of social networking sites from Wikipedia. I'm open to suggestions. I've checked a few out, I can't say I've found a one the feels like a good home.

I'm started a myspace page yesterday, and installed the in-house slide show player from myspace (and why don't you mention it here, by the way?).

It looks and works great, BUT it consistently eats an avg. of 48% of CPU Usage for me, and the default, as with all the players it seems, is to have it moving when you load the page.

This is problematic for me, but also for visitors. Combine it with a streaming video or a music, and the system maxes out at 100% CPU usage.

Any comment on this? Would any of the other players be better in this regard?

Wow. You covered it so very well. I've got to stop reading your blog, it's competing with my new time-sink "SL".

After blogging every couple of weeks for a couple of months (and taking the opposite tack from most of your strategies as well) I too wrote on blogging itself, but more on the "Why?" question, as in "Why blog?".

So now I have a half-assed occasional diversion that gives me some satisfaction but few readers.

Your writing is very clear.

It's a weird place. But the costs are minimal if you're going to be a tourist.

You put it so well.

I also spent six hours investigating all corners of this world yesterday, and had some similar impressions.

I've spent the past two hours reading blogs via technorati (how I found yours) and googling.

Other impressions:

It's as good as your destination, and the time spent time asking people for the best spots paid off.

It's exhilarating to fly.

I of course checked out sex clubs and a nudist beach, which along with gambling and porn accounts for much of it, and there's a deserted strip mall feeling to much of the rest. But all of this, I can see, is avoidable. Years ago I taught Engrish in Tokyo and as a broke and disoriented gaijin newcomer I saw Japanese trash culture everywhere I looked, unless I stumbled across a special, half-hidden place. By the end of my stay, the beautiful and interesting places were where I spent most of my time outside of work.

Conversations were hit and miss. Most were like half-scary bus station banter, but others, in a tower in the Myst-like settings of "Svarga" and "Apollo" and the virtual bookstore "Shakespeare and Co." were as good as they get while tapping keys.

All in all, I'm impressed. The coding and chat technology will get better. I think it can add rather than subtract from a life.

Nice site, I like it. Great links, good work.
I think you'll have more happy users if you'd consider compressing the info: the screen real estate is precious and your "banner" is large. Also you could just list the categories (see GMail Mobile) without bordering them in boxes. Avoid having people use their styli to scroll.

Also, your username text box is limited to 10 characters--any reason for this. Personally it means I have to take extra steps...

Hope this helps.