I have seen Hell and it is MySpace.com

As popular as MySpace.com is, a lot of people recognize that it's not perfect. I have been with the site for 2 years and I've noticed how they are constantly making changes and upgrades to the site.

Unfortunately, they never seem to fix what is REALLY wrong with the site. And, it seems, they keep adding new features, as if they figure there's nothing better to do.

Alas, there is PLENTY I have seen wrong with MySpace.com. It's taken them a long time to fix these problems. And, actually, some of them are not even getting fixed at all! It's like they PREFER to run things in poor shape.

My main gripes with this site are:

POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

I mean, you can't even CALL it "customer service," because there is NO ONE there to serve a customer!! Sending an email invites two things: A generic response that has NOTHING to do with the problem at hand, and a very, very, very, very, VERRRRRRRY long delay in replying. It takes them MONTHS to reply to emails from customers. Some people don't even hear from them -- AT ALL. And forget about calling them on the phone. I tried that myself twice today and all I got was an answering machine that said one thing: "Marlene." That's it! Freakin' ridiculous.

POOR SITE SECURITY

They have very bad site security on MySpace. It's like MySpace.com is the new playground for hackers and spammers! Peoples' accounts are getting hacked and spammed and even phished really, REALLY badly.

TOO MANY "UNEXPECTED ERRORS"

There are so many times I've tried to do something on MySpace -- add a friend, reply to a message or leave a comment -- but I keep getting "unexpected error" pages and lose the data I was trying to send. Or, if it's me trying to add someone, then I constantly get error messages each time I try again to add them.

LACK OF IMPORT/EXPORT FEATURES

I really think MySpace would be doing people a BIG favor if they made it easier to back stuff up. I realize the account codes can be copied/pasted into a text document, but for the HTML stuff, the only way to get the actual LINKS for those profiles is to open them and copy the link from the browser window. That's it. There is NO OTHER WAY to do it. Now, think about this for a minute. That could be pretty damn tedious for anyone with a sloooooow ISP (like me!) and especially tiresome if a person trying to save all their Friends links has a whole crapload of Friends.

WAY-OUT-THERE ADVERTISEMENTS

Because MySpace.com is owned by Rupert Murdoch, I'm not surprised to see all Fox-related movie ads that could throw a viewer into seizures. Sometimes, they go way, waaay overboard with these advertisements and it either slows down logging in or it causes errors when I try to click on other pages or check something out. I realize that MySpace.com being a free site MUST make money somehow. And I respect that they must run ads. But when the ads are enough to make my eyes explode or give me a headache, then it's just much too much.

With all these grievances from MySpace.com, one would wonder why I even bother to stay a member of that site. Believe you me, I have been tempted SOOOO many times to delete my account and NEVER deal with MySpace again. (Seriously!) But ... and, yes, there is a "but"! But, I have family on there, and MySpace is one way we keep in touch. (Ironically, one of my sisters answers her messages on MySpace faster than her emails!) I also have friends on there, too. REAL friends. People I've known for years and people I know in real life. And, of course, it's been a great networking tool for other writers, editors and authors. I even come across calls for submissions through Friends on my list, and keeping updated on all their news and forthcoming events has been a bonus, as well.

However, I still might one day get fed up enough with MySpace.com to delete my account. I don't know. I WILL stick around, hoping they'll eventually WAKE UP and fix the above problems, but I don't think my patience with them will last forever.

At least AOL has BETTER customer service than MySpace.com. I take it back: AOL is not evil. MySpace is evil!