My Gift Economy Space

A gift economy is not exactly the easiest thing to define. Peter Kollock breaks down what a gift economy represents in the online world by simply asking, “What is a gift?” Starting with the basic definition that a gift is “the obligatory transfer of inalienable objects or services,” it appears that the Internet certainly could be a place for this to occur. Thus, it would be inferred that a gift economy would simply be the forum in which this took place, presumably a website with posts, blogs, etc. The conclusion that Kollock reaches is that the Internet has opened up a whole new give-take world in which users can connect and interact with one another about topics or issues that are of universal concern. Furthermore, not only can ideas be shared, debates waged, and advice given, but both sides should come out of the experience with a time- and cost-efficient sense of accomplishment.

While I generally do not use the Internet for what appears to be our general definition for a gift economy, a website that I do use, I believe, belongs in that category: MySpace. Yes, MySpace is more often than not brought up only to serve as the butt of a joke. However, the site has a built itself an incredible forum for exploiting new music and video that has the ability to reach an audience of millions on a daily basis. Because MySpace had become so popular with its users logging in daily to post comments to other users, it was inevitable that this huge flow of traffic would be taken advantage of to exploit media. Therefore, MySpace music was born, allowing bands and artists to create user pages with streaming audio and later video to be played at free will. Users could download these songs or videos for free, or could simply link them to their own page so that personal pages could also have streaming audio. This simple change propelled an already growing website into the stratosphere, and became a very good example of a give-take relationship between artist and fan. By posting even 30 second clips of songs on their page, bands could gain exposure from anyone who stumbled upon their site, and begin to get the word out on their music.


The most notorious example of this to date (and most god-awful in my opinion) is Cute Is What We Aim For. While it pains me to write about that band in a blog, and even more so that they are from Buffalo, they are the epitome of what MySpace music has done for hopeful youths. Not even out of highschool before they struck nation-wide fame, they became forever linked with MySpace in that their music gained an extraordinarily large fan base in a manner that was previously unattainable. Richard Barbrook touches on this topic in, "The High-Tech Gift Economy," stating that bands learned long ago that giving away music usually attracts more possible sales than denies them, as the record companies have long-feared. While MySpace is a haven for new-music-starved youths, it is also a pretty sly marketing scheme for big-business artists. While unsuspecting underage users are constantly searching for the song or band that represents their “independent, different” selves, they are exploring more and more artists that they are probably enjoying and eventually buying their music. With the introduction of the MySpace Music Store, it seems that Tom and his constantly heckled website continue to do nothing but improve themselves by the minute.

As they say, the proof is in the pudding; whether you love it or hate it, MySpace has blown away the possibility of competition in its field (Facebook has its die-hards, but has yet to reach par).




Barbrook, R. (Decmeber 2005). The High-Tech Gift Economy. First Monday, Special Issue #3. Retrieved February 9, 2007, from http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_12/barbrook

Kollock, P. (1999). The Economies of Online Cooperation:
Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace. Communities in Cyberspace. Retrieved February 9, 2007, from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm