My space or Over there space

A VC (Who I note has a similar personality profile to me) has an interesting article about Myspace. I find it interesting that most parents I speak to here in the UK are not even aware of Myspace's existence, even though Murdoch bought it for $580m in July 2005, and that most of their kids are using it.

I like this analogy via A VC's article from Chartreuse :-

Every day millions of kids get on bikes and ride around neighborhoods across the country without much parental supervision.

Now a lot of bad things can happen to a kid on a bike.

She can be hit by a car.

She can be abducted.

She can fall and break her arm.

She can just ride off as far as her feet can take her and decide never to come back home again

Now because of all the horrible things which can happen to a kid on
a bike a huge industry was created. They sell helmets, kneepads, tracking systems, and the like to make bikes safer or parents feel more secure.

Despite all this stuff most parents still just give their kids some rules and let them ride.

MySpace is just the modern bike.

Lots of horrible things can happen to a kid on the internet. And the
industry will continue to grow based around protecting children from
all that horrible stuff or making parents feel more secure.

But the truth of the matter is that most parents will just give there child some rules and let them ride.

And that’s o.k.

I guess the big difference is that you can see when your kid is out because the bike has gone and that maybe you established ground rules when they learned how to ride.