Latest MySpace killers are - almost - on to something

Two recent launches in the social networking space seem to point the way for the next round of MySpace killer speculation. One is LostCherry, a professedly "edgier" social networking site that, as Scott Karp comments, even publishes a list of "MySpace's most conspicuous vulnerabilities" (including what I think is going to be the long-term biggie - "undercover cops patrolling the site like Big Brother"). The second is SmutVibes (which site is not remotely work safe, so the above link points instead to an excellent TechCrunch review). SmutVibes is like a pornolized MySpace, with nude photos not only allowed but positively encouraged and the whole site overtly purposed as an adult site where users can have uncensored, explicit conversations.

What's so interesting about SmutVibes is not the prurient content - the web is hardly short of amateur porn - but that it's based in Jamaica yet clearly aimed at an international digital audience. Such is the unfettered globalism of the web. Now, the one and only thing I know about Jamaican law is that - like the Swedish law governing PirateBay or the Russian law governing AllofMP3 - it isn't made in response to the fears of US and European parents surrounding the activities of their children online. As Mike asks over at TechCrunch, "How will teens be kept safe from SmutVibes? Laughably perhaps, registration is not allowed for those who provide a birth date indicating that they are less than 18 years old. Hmmm…don’t think that’s going to be enough." And indeed, if SmutVibes was run by a US or European media company it would be nothing like enough either in legal or PR terms. Perhaps in Jamaica though this meagre nod at age screening will suffice.

Even if Jamaica is not the perfect example, sooner or later we are going to see the creation of a social networking site aimed at a global audience but based in a territory whose laws allow the owners to keep it genuinely uncensored, genuinely unscrutinised and genuinely unconcerned about screening out teens. (If all else failed possibly that bastion of extra-territorial libertarianism Sealand would suffice.) I've argued before that what will kill MySpace is that its owners, News Corp, cannot preserve the illusion of freedom from adult scrutiny that brought the teens there in the first place. LostCherry is a well thought-out attempt at a return to imaginary anarchy, but the site is moderated, it does have a policy on explicit content and it is perfectly apparent that anything does not in fact go. We are still waiting, I believe, for the launch of the MySpace killer that combines the most disruptive features of LostCherry and SmutVibes with those of PirateBay or AllofMP3 - an edgy, well-designed web2.0 social networking application based somewhere on the territorial and legal periphery where the freedom from scrutiny of even US and European teenage users is not merely a crafted marketing illusion but a reality founded on the (locally) legally-protected resistence of the site owners to external pressure.