Word: angwin
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Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America By Julia Angwin 268 pages; Random House...
...Angwin's book is a tour through MySpace's turbulent adolescence. The site's massive growth made it an easy target for hackers, privacy advocates, parent groups, competitors and (fortunately for co-founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe) investors with fat checkbooks. But with its purchase by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, MySpace has gone from freewheeling, easy-living Web start-up to establishment player. And as it reluctantly approaches maturity, MySpace has new challenges to face, securing advertisers and innovating new features chief among them. Oh yeah - and a pesky little start-up called Facebook...
...Angwin, a technology writer at the Wall Street Journal, is equally adept at breaking down both the technological and the business sides of MySpace's development. It's a richly detailed portrait of the growth of a modern media company, complete with all the growing pains, feuds and business machinations that accompany it. Like a MySpace user, though, sometimes Angwin has a tendency to overshare - at one point, the pornography habits of MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson are discussed...
...area where the detail could stand to be bolstered is in MySpace's plans going forward. Though Angwin makes the case that MySpace and Facebook are fundamentally different sites, the latter is currently in the ascendant - so much so that a book devoted to MySpace's origins seems almost dated. Angwin doesn't leave the reader with a clear picture of how the site will continue to grow, but this may be out of the author's control. Perhaps MySpace isn't quite sure about that either...
Despite almost daily exercise, Angwin has avoided injuries. He runs at dawn to beat the Florida heat and varies his routine with swimming and cycling. "I'm as addicted to good health now as I once was addicted to unhealth," he says. "I can do anything a younger athlete can do. It just takes me longer...