It's interesting to note however that MySpace is probably one of the only places on the net you can build a mailing list (let's face it... that's what you're doing with all that whore train business) without actually having to entice users to opt-in by dangling some kind of freebie in front of their noses.

However if you do get into this, be advised that many MySpace users will approve your automated friend request with an agenda of their own. For example, many will probably just want to inflate their own friends list for the sake of sheer vanity and will never even visit your MySpace page, your website or pay attention to any promotional bulletins you send out.

Still others might even be promoters like yourself. This will create a situation akin to a door-to-door salesman being greeted by a happy homemaker who immediately launches into a sales pitch of her own.

All of this makes for a less than targeted mailing list.

But hey... that's what y

Quite frankly....? NO.

Even the very concept of marketing with MySpace is dangerously close to violating the MySpace Terms of Use Agreement. Section 8, paragraph 2, part 2 clearly prohibits "advertising to, or solicitation of, any Member to buy or sell any products or services through the MySpace Services".

However, the wording does leave you some wiggle room. You don't have to actually advertise your products or services on your MySpace profile. You can, instead, link your MySpace profile to your website advertising your products and services and then just kind of... *ahem*... plug your site (heavily) on MySpace. Right?

Of course, the notion that MySpace was not meant to be used for promotional purposes doesn't hold much water anyway when you take into consideration that MySpace is widely known as a vehicle to promote bands. So then the question arises, if Joe Guitar and the Gray Tones can use MySpace to hype their band (and ultimately sell CDs) why can't I use MySpace to sell my blue widgets?

But then these double standards are only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface of MySpace promotional accounts lurks a leviathan of terms of use violations, most particularly surrounding the issue of automating the adding of friends to your MySpace friends list.

MySpace Whore Trains
It all began when MySpace resource sites started sprouting up all over the net providing a means to create ginormous MySpace friends lists very quickly via special automated scripts. These scripts eventually became known as (*chuckle*) 'whore trains'.

This soon gave away to the ability to create your own whore trains by copy-and-pasting a ready-made whore train script and sending it out via the MySpace bulletin system.

Of course, these services were all provided free of charge. No money in that. It wasn't long before someone thought, "Hey! Why not sell a program that does the same thing?"

And, sure enough, along came MySpace friend adder software which you could actually buy, install on your computer and use it from there to jam up your friends list faster than you can say 'add me'.

But wait, that's not all.. You can now even join affiliate programs and earn a commission when you generate sales for these friend adder programs.

As of this writing, if you do a search in Google for "myspace whore train", you'll find automated friend adder scripts as far as the eye can see.

And yet, amazingly enough, all of the above once again constitutes a blatant violation of the MySpace Terms of Use Agreement. In case you didn't know, section 8, paragraph 2, part 4 of the MySpace.com Terms of Use Agreement explicitly prohibits:

"any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to add friends or send comments or messages;"

Ooops.... Uh-oh...

Selling MySpace on Ebay
Nevertheless, in spite of all this auto-friend-adding stuff being illegal, every gung ho MySpace marketer this side of Pluto is using some kind of whore train or friend adder program to pump up their friends list. And they are doing it at the rate of 3500 per week! (MySpace reportedly imposes a daily friend request limit of 500.)

So can one compete with all that without jumping on the bandwagon? Probably not.

And is it risky? Of course.

With people now creating MySpace profiles for the sole purpose of amassing tens of thousands of friends and then selling those profiles on Ebay (I kid you not), the potential for abuse is enormous. [And yes it is also explicitly against MySpace Terms of Use to sell your profile (section 8, paragraph 2, part 9)].

The bottom line is MySpace will delete your profile if you take the whole friend-adding, bulletin-spamming, profile-flipping thing too far. They may even apply a special filter preventing you from using your website's domain name in any hyperlinks generated in the entire MySpace system (which means all profiles, bulletins and messages). So a word to the wise: Moderation is the key.

It's interesting to note however that MySpace is probably one of the only places on the net you can build a mailing list (let's face it... that's what you're doing with all that whore train business) without actually having to entice users to opt-in by dangling some kind of freebie in front of their noses.

However if you do get into this, be advised that many MySpace users will approve your automated friend request with an agenda of their own. For example, many will probably just want to inflate their own friends list for the sake of sheer vanity and will never even visit your MySpace page, your website or pay attention to any promotional bulletins you send out.

Still others might even be promoters like yourself. This will create a situation akin to a door-to-door salesman being greeted by a happy homemaker who immediately launches into a sales pitch of her own.

All of this makes for a less than targeted mailing list.

But hey... that's what yo

But then these double standards are only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface of MySpace promotional accounts lurks a leviathan of terms of use violations, most particularly surrounding the issue of automating the adding of friends to your MySpace friends list.

MySpace Whore Trains
It all began when MySpace resource sites started sprouting up all over the net providing a means to create ginormous MySpace friends lists very quickly via special automated scripts. These scripts eventually became known as (*chuckle*) 'whore trains'.

This soon gave away to the ability to create your own whore trains by copy-and-pasting a ready-made whore train script and sending it out via the MySpace bulletin system.

Of course, these services were all provided free of charge. No money in that. It wasn't long before someone thought, "Hey! Why not sell a program that does the same thing?"

And, sure enough, along came MySpace friend adder software which you could actually buy, install on your computer and use it from there to jam up your friends list faster than you can say 'add me'.

But wait, that's not all.. You can now even join affiliate programs and earn a commission when you generate sales for these friend adder programs.

As of this writing, if you do a search in Google for "myspace whore train", you'll find automated friend adder scripts as far as the eye can see.

And yet, amazingly enough, all of the above once again constitutes a blatant violation of the MySpace Terms of Use Agreement. In case you didn't know, section 8, paragraph 2, part 4 of the MySpace.com Terms of Use Agreement explicitly prohibits:

"any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to add friends or send comments or messages;"

Ooops.... Uh-oh...

Selling MySpace on Ebay
Nevertheless, in spite of all this auto-friend-adding stuff being illegal, every gung ho MySpace marketer this side of Pluto is using some kind of whore train or friend adder program to pump up their friends list. And they are doing it at the rate of 3500 per week! (MySpace reportedly imposes a daily friend request limit of 500.)

So can one compete with all that without jumping on the bandwagon? Probably not.

And is it risky? Of course.

With people now creating MySpace profiles for the sole purpose of amassing tens of thousands of friends and then selling those profiles on Ebay (I kid you not), the potential for abuse is enormous. [And yes it is also explicitly against MySpace Terms of Use to sell your profile (section 8, paragraph 2, part 9)].

The bottom line is MySpace will delete your profile if you take the whole friend-adding, bulletin-spamming, profile-flipping thing too far. They may even apply a special filter preventing you from using your website's domain name in any hyperlinks generated in the entire MySpace system (which means all profiles, bulletins and messages). So a word to the wise: Moderation is the key.

It's interesting to note however that MySpace is probably one of the only places on the net you can build a mailing list (let's face it... that's what you're doing with all that whore train business) without actually having to entice users to opt-in by dangling some kind of freebie in front of their noses.

However if you do get into this, be advised that many MySpace users will approve your automated friend request with an agenda of their own. For example, many will probably just want to inflate their own friends list for the sake of sheer vanity and will never even visit your MySpace page, your website or pay attention to any promotional bulletins you send out.

Still others might even be promoters like yourself. This will create a situation akin to a door-to-door salesman being greeted by a happy homemaker who immediately launches into a sales pitch of her own.

All of this makes for a less than targeted mailing list.

But hey... that's what y

And, sure enough, along came MySpace friend adder software which you could actually buy, install on your computer and use it from there to jam up your friends list faster than you can say 'add me'.

But wait, that's not all.. You can now even join affiliate programs and earn a commission when you generate sales for these friend adder programs.

As of this writing, if you do a search in Google for "myspace whore train", you'll find automated friend adder scripts as far as the eye can see.

And yet, amazingly enough, all of the above once again constitutes a blatant violation of the MySpace Terms of Use Agreement. In case you didn't know, section 8, paragraph 2, part 4 of the MySpace.com Terms of Use Agreement explicitly prohibits:

"any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to add friends or send comments or messages;"

Ooops.... Uh-oh...

Selling MySpace on Ebay
Nevertheless, in spite of all this auto-friend-adding stuff being illegal, every gung ho MySpace marketer this side of Pluto is using some kind of whore train or friend adder program to pump up their friends list. And they are doing it at the rate of 3500 per week! (MySpace reportedly imposes a daily friend request limit of 500.)

So can one compete with all that without jumping on the bandwagon? Probably not.

And is it risky? Of course.

With people now creating MySpace profiles for the sole purpose of amassing tens of thousands of friends and then selling those profiles on Ebay (I kid you not), the potential for abuse is enormous. [And yes it is also explicitly against MySpace Terms of Use to sell your profile (section 8, paragraph 2, part 9)].

The bottom line is MySpace will delete your profile if you take the whole friend-adding, bulletin-spamming, profile-flipping thing too far. They may even apply a special filter preventing you from using your website's domain name in any hyperlinks generated in the entire MySpace system (which means all profiles, bulletins and messages). So a word to the wise: Moderation is the key.

It's interesting to note however that MySpace is probably one of the only places on the net you can build a mailing list (let's face it... that's what you're doing with all that whore train business) without actually having to entice users to opt-in by dangling some kind of freebie in front of their noses.

However if you do get into this, be advised that many MySpace users will approve your automated friend request with an agenda of their own. For example, many will probably just want to inflate their own friends list for the sake of sheer vanity and will never even visit your MySpace page, your website or pay attention to any promotional bulletins you send out.

Still others might even be promoters like yourself. This will create a situation akin to a door-to-door salesman being greeted by a happy homemaker who immediately launches into a sales pitch of her own.

All of this makes for a less than targeted mailing list.

But hey... that's what y

So can one compete with all that without jumping on the bandwagon? Probably not.

And is it risky? Of course.

With people now creating MySpace profiles for the sole purpose of amassing tens of thousands of friends and then selling those profiles on Ebay (I kid you not), the potential for abuse is enormous. [And yes it is also explicitly against MySpace Terms of Use to sell your profile (section 8, paragraph 2, part 9)].

The bottom line is MySpace will delete your profile if you take the whole friend-adding, bulletin-spamming, profile-flipping thing too far. They may even apply a special filter preventing you from using your website's domain name in any hyperlinks generated in the entire MySpace system (which means all profiles, bulletins and messages). So a word to the wise: Moderation is the key.

It's interesting to note however that MySpace is probably one of the only places on the net you can build a mailing list (let's face it... that's what you're doing with all that whore train business) without actually having to entice users to opt-in by dangling some kind of freebie in front of their noses.

However if you do get into this, be advised that many MySpace users will approve your automated friend request with an agenda of their own. For example, many will probably just want to inflate their own friends list for the sake of sheer vanity and will never even visit your MySpace page, your website or pay attention to any promotional bulletins you send out.

Still others might even be promoters like yourself. This will create a situation akin to a door-to-door salesman being greeted by a happy homemaker who immediately launches into a sales pitch of her own.

All of this makes for a less than targeted mailing list.

But hey... that's what y

It's interesting to note however that MySpace is probably one of the only places on the net you can build a mailing list (let's face it... that's what you're doing with all that whore train business) without actually having to entice users to opt-in by dangling some kind of freebie in front of their noses.

However if you do get into this, be advised that many MySpace users will approve your automated friend request with an agenda of their own. For example, many will probably just want to inflate their own friends list for the sake of sheer vanity and will never even visit your MySpace page, your website or pay attention to any promotional bulletins you send out.

Still others might even be promoters like yourself. This will create a situation akin to a door-to-door salesman being greeted by a happy homemaker who immediately launches into a sales pitch of her own.

All of this makes for a less than targeted mailing list.

But hey... that's what you get when you break the rules. :o)