Attention MySpace PR Team: Back to Battle Stations

The perceived crises won't alienate kids, but will alienate their parents -- as well as potential MySpace buyers/investors.

I think you all are partially right in thinking that myspace needs a crisis communication plan. But i also think that all of this "negative" media publicity is necessarily hurting myspace. You have to remember their audience. They're audience is a young audience, a lot of which probably haven't heard any of the negative news. They just want to interact with their friends and other random people that are interested in similar things as them. If the myspacers hear about a bomb threat at a school being made through myspace I truely think most of them will laugh. And some 16-year-old girl is dumb enough to go meet a stranger and get raped, well that's not too laughable, but people aren't running away from myspace because of it. Crisis communication is important for sure, but let's remember the audience here. Myspacers are just out there to have fun and meet people, most of them are between 15-25 years old. I don't think Tom is in any danger yet.

(Sorry: CGPR - Consumer Generated PR)

That's ok. It's CGPR!Good ideas. AOL took that position outlined in #1 after being the site where everyone could access anything they wanted. It couldn't hurt for myspace to try that model as well.I'm going to throw this 'freebie' PR idea out there for them as well:Take a case where someone used their site for illegal purposes and make an example of them publicly. That might also set the tone that they are serious about fixing things.But any of these ideas are predicated on an assumption that the myspace founders want to fix this problem, and not just kill time until someone buys them out for $4 trillion.

Boy...good question.I usually charge for this, but:MySpace should become very active on a number of fronts simultaneously. For example:1. Make your standards for safety the toughest on the Net among all social networking and dating sites. Do this objectively, then document this -- name names by comparing your standards to other sites. Become the gold standard for safe social networking -- and let everybody know you're doing that. Pound it into their heads over and over and over again.2. Put some of the sensationalistic media coverage in context by putting together data sheets that show the number of incidences relative to the number of MySpace users and MySpace interactions that occur everyday. The media -- particularly TV -- will take one example and kill you with it unless you can provide them a broader context that can effectively demonstrate that they are overgeneralizing and leaping to conclusions.Those are the first two things I'd do. Beyond that, they'll have to call me and I'll help them at my usual hourly rate.

This will happen more and more as they grow. Scott, curious what you would do from a PR POV specifically to handle this. (Either acknowledge the problem and that it's being addressed, or don't and just move on, etc.)I mentioned earlier but IMO, and it's only a matter of time, but someone will end up suing them for something that happens online, and then will they take a harder look.