Editing 134: Myspace

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 4: Line 4:
 
| title    = Myspace
 
| title    = Myspace
 
| image    = myspace.png
 
| image    = myspace.png
 +
| imagesize =
 
| titletext = It's like they got together and said 'what do we miss most from the internet in 1998? that's right, embedded MIDI!'
 
| titletext = It's like they got together and said 'what do we miss most from the internet in 1998? that's right, embedded MIDI!'
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
−
This comic references a common issue that users would experience in the late 2000s on the now outdated website {{w|MySpace}}. At the time, an individual with a profile on that website would be able to choose a song that would automatically play when anyone accessed said profile. This was a heavily promoted feature in which the majority of users would partake. The song would interrupt whatever else the user was doing, such as listening to music, watching a video, or simply browsing in silence.  
+
Oh, dear...
 +
Have you ever visited a website that, not long after the page finishes loading, suddenly plays a song? Such an event is already startling when alone, but others near your vicinity would also get affected. The five seconds to which the computer in the comic refers are the approximate time required for you to successfully stop the music (finding the "pause"/"stop" button, muting the computer audio...)
  
−
For further context, MySpace at the time did not have a universal "news feed" to browse, so users would perform most of their interaction with other users by actively going to their profiles. Thus, the auto-playing music became a compounding problem, as the user could experience it several times per browsing session.
+
Since [[http://www.myspace.com/ MySpace]] allows wide customization for one's page, embedded music players (that can even play automatically) are a (sad) possibility. While MySpace seems to have faded, automatic embedded players live on in [[http://www.tumblr.com/ Tumblr]], another site which allows heavy customization of one's blog.
  
−
The "first five seconds" refers to approximately how long it would take a typical user to pause the music. Fewer keyboards at the time would have had volume control keys, and web browsers did not support media keys (such as a play/pause key) [//howtogeek.com/698434/your-keyboards-media-keys-work-in-all-modern-web-browsers until a decade later]. As a result, many users would have needed to find an on-screen pause button and aim the {{w|mouse pointer}} at it.
+
The title text refers to the fact that pages of old also allowed one to embed an MIDI (a file format that describes music) file in the page so that the page would play the file upon loading. This gets worse with the fact that the MIDI file can be set to play continuously, requiring either closing the web page or manually adjusting the volume of your computer.
−
 
 
−
Future social networks would eschew features like this, as they are perceived by the user base to be annoying and distracting. However, the issue in some ways persists, as sites like Facebook now auto-play sound on videos and advertisements (unless the user opts out).
 
−
 
 
−
The title text refers to the fact that old pages, back in the late 1990s, used embedded {{w|MIDI}} files, which would not only play automatically, but also have no way to stop playing. The viewer would have to leave the website or externally mute the audio. Additionally, some Macintosh computers at the time had a bug that would automatically play MIDI files at the maximum computer volume, making them an incredible nuisance. MIDI files do not contain actual audio, but instead contain instructions for which notes to play on which musical instruments, and upon playback, these instructions would render sound from a library of MIDI audio samples installed in the computer's operating system — audio samples that were often artificially synthesized and of poor quality, producing music reminiscent of early video games; this may have made these web pages with embedded MIDI even more annoying. (In fairness, it should be noted that high-quality MIDI audio samples are also available, often recorded from actual musical instruments, and capable of reproducing realistic music.)
 
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
−
:[Computer screen showing a myspace page.]
+
:[Computer screen showing a myspace page]
−
:Oh man, you and everyone in earshot are gonna '''<u>love</u>''' the first five seconds of this song!
+
:Oh man, you and everyone in earshot are gonna LOVE the first five seconds of this song!
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
 +
 
[[Category:Comics with color]]
 
[[Category:Comics with color]]
 
[[Category:Music]]
 
[[Category:Music]]
 
[[Category:Internet]]
 
[[Category:Internet]]
 
[[Category:Social networking]]
 
[[Category:Social networking]]

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)

Templates used on this page:

Retrieved from "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/134:_Myspace"