I started writing this post a few months back on pc4media.

A few months back, the techie blogosphere finally realized the power of myspace. John Battelle recognized that myspace classifieds is not too dissimilar from craigslist. Scott Allen details how it can be used by business bloggers and affiliate marketers. Businessweek even covered it.

But, what really makes myspace something big? It's a marketplace.

Andrew Teman and I have been having a backchannel discussion and uncovering website after website that what we've termed myspace feeder businesses. (Credit where credit is due.) There are hundreds of individuals that have developed myspace feeder businesses, where they build toys and tools that enable myspace users to grab code and paste it into their profiles or to help them customize their profiles. There are hundreds or thousands of possibilities. Everything from tools to help you customize your myspace page to putting an animated crystal ball on it. I had a conversation with the guy that runs freeflashtoys.com. I won't reveal the details of how many impressions his toys are generating on myspace or on his site. But, consider that he is running only CPC ads on his site and making a comfortable living from it, and you can easily calculate how many impressions he is generating from myspace alone.

Take it a step further and you'll quickly uncover that there are people running their business through myspace. They're not selling crap through ebay, but they are influencing thousands of people just by using the site as it was intended to be used. Well, maybe as a super user. There are many promotions, modeling agencies, publishing agencies and event companies that are using myspace as their primary promotional tool.

Bulletins that reach 100s of thousands of people. Automated programs that automatically add friends. A whole ecosystem of 3rd party software has cropped up. In a week and with a little bit of babying, this software helped me get 1100 new friends, mostly local. I could send them targeted and personalized messages based on what groups they belong-to and I can customize the message with their name, so they don't even know that it is automated.

So, if Myspace is a Marketplace, why is it a more successful marketplace than others?

Barrier to Entry for Participants: None

Barrier to Reaching Target en masse: Flat fee.

Barrier to Viral Success on Myspace: Posting Photos of barely clad women. (Not Work Safe)

Barrier to Driving Traffic to Your Site from Myspace (Myspace feeder Business): Text boxes with html that can be pasted on a myspace profile. (Not Work Safe)