MySpace has been in these offices for just four months, and already has leased a larger space two floors up to accommodate its rapidly growing staff. In the last 16 weeks, the company has doubled in size to about 100, and is hiring new employees on an almost daily basis. Also in the works is the launch of an online music store.

"It's crazy," DeWolfe says. "We're hiring so many people, it's a big enough challenge just learning everybody's name."

This challenge is only natural for the man at the helm of one of the hottest, fastest-growing destinations on the Internet. According to ComScore Media Metrix, MySpace in the last two months rose two spots to fifth place on the list of the 10 most-visited Web sites, based on its 7.5 billion unique visitors in May. That's more than Google or Hotmail.

And all MySpace does is maintain a collection of user-created blogs organized and connected to each other by shared interests. By providing users the tools to do what they want and otherwise staying out of the way, MySpace has amassed 18.5 million members, and is growing at a rate of 2 million per month. Membership is free.

ONLINE COMMUNITY

"The idea was to create this community where people could create accurate representations of themselves and put their lives online," DeWolfe says. "People are starting to understand that the holy grail of the Internet is community. The real potential for the Internet that we were talking about 10 years ago is just now beginning to materialize."

With its focus on 16- to 34-year-olds, MySpace has become a powerhouse for online music promotion. Acts such as Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, the Black Eyed Peas, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, R.E.M. and Billy Corgan have used the service to host "listening parties," exclusively streaming upcoming albums in their entirety weeks before street date.

DeWolfe and his partner Tom Anderson meet regularly with label executives on promotional ideas.

"All the people at MySpace were open to trying what we wanted to do. It was just an all-around good vibe," says Dan Field of Firm Entertainment, Weezer's management company. "It felt like it was all about the music. It just felt right. The people that run it are doing it for the right reasons."

MySpace was a key component in Weezer's prerelease promotional campaign for the band's new Geffen/Interscope album, "Make Believe." Firm Entertainment gave away tickets for Weezer's prerelease club tour to MySpace users who linked to the band's MySpace profile as "friends." According to Ben Patterson, Firm's former VP of digital music and strategic development, Weezer's friends list shot from 8,000 to 70,000 in two weeks.

GETTING PERSONAL

"MySpace has such a community element to it," Patterson says. "If we gave tickets away through a Ticketmaster or CitySearch promotion, or even through the Weezer Web site, it's less personal than it is on MySpace. There's more of a connection there not only with the band on a one-on-one basis, but a group connection where fans can meet each other while they get familiar with the new music from Weezer."

More than 240,000 bands have MySpace profiles, using the system to promote and distribute their music through the digital word-of-mouth the site offers.

"When people create a profile on MySpace, they create a representation of who they think they are, and one of the primary things that defines people is music," DeWolfe says.

DeWolfe plans to capitalize on MySpace's role as a digital music influencer with the online music store. He is negotiating with several "major online music retailers" to support a service that lets MySpace users trade playlists and buy new music via the site.

This will place MySpace in even more direct competition with AOL Music, Yahoo and MSN, all of which are adding blogging services of their own, integrated with their music, e-mail and instant-messaging capabilities.

"I'd never be so arrogant to say we don't look at those guys," DeWolfe says, "but I think it's much easier to have a social networked environment and add those portal features on top of it than to try to change behaviors like Yahoo and AOL. They have to be all things to all people."

DeWolfe says he has earned the right to be on equal footing with the Web giants -- and has the usage numbers to back it up.

"We set out to create the next major portal," he says. "A lot of people are equating what we've built to what MTV was like 20 years ago."

Reuters/Billboard

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