BUSINESS
March,16 Friday 2007

MySpace, My Music (2/3)
With a new mainstream appeal, MySpace aims to become the online community of choice

"I think most people our age use MySpace as a tool to find out what's up with friends and around town. They want to know what's going to be happening on Friday and Saturday nights," says Sims, 23, who posts bulletins about parties, concerts and more under the name Miss Dara.

"Whatever gets people thinking or talking about an event is a useful tool," Sims says.

One musician who has reaped the benefits of MySpace is Stacy Smith, 28, Aka Reach.

"It's a quick way to establish a fan base regionally and even nationally. The growth potential there is something that can't be duplicated on an everyday level," says Reach, who has connected with artists about locally-in the Kansas City area-and as far away as Denmark to do collaborations, all due to the networking power of MySpace.

"It's hard to shoot your music out to someone in Michigan, but MySpace eliminates that. It's even more accessible than a person's own website. There are a lot of artists I know and I don't know their website, but I know their MySpace address. It's something everybody is tapped into .

Many music clubs have their own pages, too, as do a number of popular clothing stores. Hadley Johnson, owner of the clothing store Spool, posts sales and events to connect with customers and designers, locally and nationally

"It helps build an identity for a small boutique," says Johnson, 29. "And it allows the customers to be a part of Spool other than in-store contact.

"I am able to be associated and connected to them on a different level."

Vocabulary Focus

aka (abbr) --- an abbreviation for "also known as"
duplicate (v) --- to make an exact copy of something