Myspace background revisited.

Posted by: sachiko on: November 2, 2006

In: coolchaser| url.com
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Update: Try out CoolChaser, our MySpace profile editor that allows you to personalize backgrounds and layouts without any messy codes!

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In the previous post, I blogged about why there are so many searches for “Myspace Backgrounds” on our search engine. Since then, it has received 46 comments as of today. To tell you the truth, I was expecting comments like “Hey, I stumbled upon your site (http://www.url.com) and found some cool backgrounds, thanks” – ok, I’m just joking but I didn’t expect to get comments mostly asking “Hey, I need help putting a background on Myspace!”

Well, I gotta confess – since I’m not a Myspace user I didn’t understand why this was happening and quite frankly I thought “Hmmm… they must not be very Internet savvy… I mean how difficult can it be to put THAT (controversial some people call crazy) background?”

So, I decided to put a background on MYspace (yes, Tom is my only friend) to see how EASY it is to put that background. I mean, it’s just putting a background you know, I can write CSS to build a whole site, I can probably do it in a minute.

First thing first, I grabbed the script for the background from one of the sites I found from the search. I found an Orlando Bloom background and got the myspace code. At this point I was thinking “Easy easy, it’s just a simple CSS code. Man, I can’t believe people are having so much trouble getting this code!!”

After that piece of cake, I went to MY myspace page. “OK, so there must be a link ‘customize your page’ or something like that so I can paste in this code…” click, click..

(5 minutes had passed)

“Hmmm, I don’t see a link that says anything about customizing the page.. OH, is it the ‘manage blog’ link?” click, click. “Hmm.. I see a link that says ‘Customize Blog’ where I got that screen shot for my previous post…. maybe it’s here” <- totally confused.

(10 minutes had passed.)

“That was just for customizing the blog not the Myspace page! I don’t need to customize the blog yet! Just putting a background on Myspace! Where do I paste in that code!” <- starting to sound more like users who left confused comments.

Again, when people ask me what I do, I say “I’m a web developer” so I believe I’m above average in terms of being Internet savvy. So I got DESPERATE.

In fact, I had to search for Myspace layout tutorial. I got bunch of results teaching me how to customize the CSS. Arrgh!! I ALREAD KNOW CSS, I JUST DON’T KNOW WHERE TO PASTE THAT D*** THING IN MYSPACE! <- going nuts!

And finally, I carefully read one of the sites, and it said “go to the edit profile page, and paste it in there.” I was thinking “but I DID check that page like 100 TIMES, and there was no box that said “paste your code here to customize your background”

I read it again and again and it said “paste it in the ‘about me’ box”

HUH??? You mean, paste the code for the background in the ‘about me’ box?? You mean like this???

Yup, that was it. Of course, the “preview section” didn’t do diddly squat, so I had to save the whole thing in order to see it in action. But people, HOW UNINTUITIVE is that? That you have to paste the background code in the ‘about me’ box? WHY? WHY?

I bet whoever started customizing their own Myspace in the very beginning did it as a hack. You CAN paste CSS codes anywhere in the HTML page – but it’s not a norm. I just heard from Chao that someone actually pasted in a javascript in one of those boxes to do a prank on other people. (you can’t paste javascipt anymore in Myspace)

But isn’t it weird that Myspace doesn’t have something intuitive enough like “paste your CSS code in here to customize your site” or something? I was quite surprised that many people did figure it out, and also surprised about Myspace’s response to the question “How do I customize my site” in the help section – they said

“Simply go to “Edit Profile” and enter the desired HTML coding where appropriate.If you do not know HTML, you can reach out and make a new friend by asking someone who has color, graphics, and/or sound on their Profile page how they did it.”

This is wrong on so many levels – firstable, they say “enter where appropriate.” So are they saying “About Me” is the appropriate place to paste the CSS code for customizing my background??? Also, I don’t want to look like a dork by asking a new friend! I wanna look cooool!

Anywho, I wanted to share my frustrated experience. Also sorry for underestimating the task . I have a feeling that each person has different reasons of being confused but thought what I had to go through might be useful to some people. I hope I don’t get more comments “I need help with my myspace background.” (which I know I still will)