MySpace is something which is hard to avoid nowadays. You may not have a page yourself, but the odds are that someone you know already does; and you hear the site mentioned everywhere. It seems like the site came out of nowhere and instantly became the biggest thing online. Well, MySpace has actually been around for a while now, but it is one of the world's most popular websites. If you are not part of this massive online social network, maybe it's time you joined.

It's incredibly easy to join and totally free. In just a couple of minutes you could have your own MySpace page and start keeping in touch with all of your friends and family who are on the site. You can look at a lot of MySpace pages with having to sign up for an account, but there are also plenty of MySpace pages which are viewable only by members, so you may as well take the plunge and sign up for an account, which will let you start using all of the features of the site.

Once you finish signing up for your free account on the site, you'll want to make your profile page. There are premade profile templates which you can use to customize your page; these will generally include graphics to use for the background of your page as well as fonts. If you are familiar with HTML, you can also make your own designs to use on your profile page.

MySpace pages usually have an area where members give a little information such as age and city, along with some of their likes and dislikes. You can add to this section and include any additional information that you want. A lot of MySpace users also add music and video clips to their pages. There are some rules on what you cannot put on your page; this is listed in the terms of service agreement for the site.

When you're done putting together your profile, you can then search the user base of the site with keywords, thanks to the site's built in search function. You can look up users by location, interests and more. When you find other users you'd like to be friends with, you can invite them to join your network; they can invite you as well.

MySpace has gotten a lot of attention from the media, deservedly so, there is no other social networking site which has been more influential or popular. However, there have also been some concerns about privacy and safety, particularly on the part of parents who are concerned about who is contacting their children online. Parents can opt to set their child's profile to non-public as well as implementing some of the other security features the site provides.

MySpace has many more features than do the older types of social networking websites. Obviously, you can use the site to keep in touch with friends and family as well as making new friends, there is much more to see here, such as chat rooms, horoscopes, even instant messaging! If you want to start using all of these features which MySpace has to offer, you'll have to start by going to www.myspace.com and building a profile for yourself.