MySpace's own record label

The social-networking site's new label, to launch next week, has a significant group of ears right up front: its some 35 million members. Reuters reports that MySpace Records's first title "will feature a mix of tracks by major-label, independent-label and unsigned acts, including Weezer, the All-American Rejects, Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, AFI, Against Me, Plain White T's, New Year's Day and Hollywood Undead" (the last "a Los Angeles rock/rap act and MySpace's first signing"). More than 550,000 artists and bands have pages at MySpace, according to Reuters, and the site was ranked No. 4 in Web traffic in August (latest figure available), after Yahoo, eBay, and MSN - *ahead* of Hotmail, Google, and AOL!

Here's the latest article on "parents as filters" at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It has anecdotes about how other parents are dealing with the use of MySpace, Xanga, LiveJournal, etc. at their house and sidebars on signs of kids' online risk-taking and keeping kids safe on various devices.