iLike = iTunes + MySpace

iLike is an excellent new social networking application that integrates with iTunes allowing you to both share and discover new music. iLike analyzes your iTunes library and then compares it with other iLike users finding people with similar likings and using this data to suggest new music for you. It reminds me of last.fm for iTunes. What is even better is that iLike provides a widget that you can use on your myspace layout to show off your great taste in music to all your friends. Here is the info from iLike.com:

Discover New Music
Check out what your friends are listening to, browse the libraries of people with similar tastes, and discover free music by new artists based on your own listening habits.
Share and Compare
Share music libraries with your friends, browse and sample their most played songs, and compare your compatibility scores.
Get the iLike Sidebar for iTunes
Auto-organize your iTunes library, share your music tastes with friends, and get music recommendations directly in iTunes. Learn more and download now.

Check it out!

Fun With ASCII Art Images

I found this cool site called text-image.com that creates incredible ascii art images out of your photographs. You can use it to do amazingly high resolution (for ascii anyway) color images out of your photos or graphics. The effect is really cool. Below is an image I created from the cover of Beck's album Sea Change. The image has been reduced in size to fit on the page, click here see the full effect. The site generates html out of your image but if you want to use it on your myspace layout I recommend taking a screenshot and creating an image for bandwidth purposes. Check it out!

YouTube Badge

For all the YouTube fans out there, flashandburn.net has created a badge similar to their flickr badge that you can use to display your recent YouTube videos on Myspace. It is completely scriptless so it plays well with myspace and it is small so instead of taking up your whole profile with your six most recent YouTube videos, you can display them in a nice little badge. Check it out!

Add Live Video Chat To Your Profile With Stickam

Stickam has an excellent widget for adding video chat to your myspace profile. All you have to do is sign up for an account install a little app on your desktop and embed some widget code in your layout and voila, live video chat with your profile visitors. This would be a really cool thing to see on a comedian or musician profile. They could broadcast live exclusive performances on their myspace profile. Very cool, check it out.



(via hacking myspace)

Pollpub Adds YouTube Polls

Just got a tip from a MySpace Hacks reader about some cool new features that the polling widget site PollPub has just added, including YouTube video polls. Now that is just cool! Polls are actually a really fun way to interact with your Myspace friends and Pollpub makes it very easy to create and add polls to your profile. Another cool thing is that you can participate in all the most popular polls on Pollpub's website. Check it out:

Photoshop Tutorials: Spooky Halloween Avatars

What better time to create a gruesome avatar than Halloween. The following are some tutorials for creating goolish halloween avatars for myspace in photoshop:

Stone Sculpture Statue (via lifehacker)


Freakish Zombie In 11 Steps Tutorial



Blood Thirsty Zombie Tutorial



Photoshop Fang Tutorial



Creating Realistic Blood

Fidget: A better way to show YouTube videos on your profile

YouTube videos are an essential part of any profile. Sure Myspace is now doing its own video thing, but it just doesn't have even close to as many videos as YouTube. Fidget is a great little widget that you can use to randomly display music videos from all of your favorite artists on your profile. This way you aren't displaying the same video all the time. The only thing that blows about it is that it doesn't play well with Internet Explorer, yet. Check it out!

Flash Toys

I don't usually write about myspace schwag sites, but pYzam.com has some excellent flash toys for pimping out your profile. Of the 5 gazillion myspace schwag sites yout there, pYzam is one of the better ones. Here are some cool flash toys that I found:

Picture Drawer: think of this as a digital version of scribbling on a picture. Anybody that visits your profile can scribble on it.

Fridge Magnets: You can enjoy all the fun refridgerator magnets have to offer on your profile.

P.O.N.G. Rock it old school with good ol' PONG

Memory: A fun and addictive game to help you dust off those brain cells

pYzam also has tons of video codes, images, glitter, games, slideshows, pranks and layouts so check them out!

Myspace Open Source Hacking Initiative

If you're interested in creating a custom layout and your not afraid to hack on your profile, check thist out.... Lately I've been reading a great blog called Myspace Civilized which has tons of great tutorials on how to customize your layout. The author started a project on the Google Code Repository called MOSHI which stands for the Myspace Open Source Hacking Initiative. MOSHI is basically a very clean, easy to use stylesheet for your profile. Anybody can download the code and contribute to MOSHI and its free to use. You can get the code here.

MyHeritage Celebrity Look Alike Widget

MyHeritage.com has a really cool little widget that uses facial recognition software to compare a picture of you to pictures of thousands of celebrities to determine which celebrities look the most like you. You can display the results on your profile in a widget containing a collage of you and all the celebrities that look like you. It works remarkable well. Thanks to Daniel (aka MonkeyBoy) for the tip on this one. Check it out!

Steven Colbert You're On Notice Sign Generator

If you want Steven Colbert to put someone on notice on Myspace, here is your chance. With this generator you can create a "You're On Notice" sign just like on the Colbert Report. The people you put on notice will be sure to pay attention because as we all know, Steven Colbert is an expert on anything. Check it out!

Watch Your Favorite TV Shows On Myspace For Free

Fox is now serving up its most popular television shows on Myspace for free! You can stream episodes of Prison Break, Justice, Til Death, Standoff, Bones, Vanished, Talk Show with Spike Feresten and The Loop. You gotta love on demand television. Who needs a Tivo when you go the web? Check it out!

Greasemonkey Custom Style Remover

Let's face it, some layouts are just hideous! Some people judge the coolness of their profile based upon the amount of glitter, fonts, backgrounds and animated gifs they can cram in. I can't count how many times I've had a myspace profile crash my browser. For those profiles, there is the Greasemonkey Custom Style Remover. Greasemonkey is a plugin for firefox that allows you to apply custom dhtml code to a page. For the cooler profiles that you still want to view but have a hard time navigating there is this script, but for the downright hideous profile, just go straight for the Greasemonkey Custom Style Remover!

Post Picture Messages With Nakama

Nakama, a new service for posting cell phone photos to your myspace (or any other blog, social network, or webpage) just launched. Nakama allows you to post audio clips, videos and photos via your cameraphone from anywhere that your phone has service. One thing that is cool is that you can view the most active videos and photos on Nakama's website so if you have cool photos, you can use them to attract visitors to your myspace. There are other websites out there that offer similar services including Broadtexter, BuddyPing, TextForFree and Abazab so be sure to shop around. Here is the info from Nakama's webite:

Set your phone free! Take pictures or videos from your phone and publish them straight to your blog, Flickr gallery, even your MySpace or MSN Spaces page. You can also look at your friends' stuff on your phone... so you don't have to wait to get home to check out what everyone's up to... their pics and videos are always there waiting for you.

Nakama's about expressing yourself, connecting with your friends, and just plain keeping entertained with all the cool stuff out there.

(via mashable)

Creating Animations in Photoshop and ImageReady

Adobe Photoshop is the best application around for creating and editing images. With Photoshop you can do just about everything, which can make doing anything a little confusing for a noob. I found this wonderful video tutorial for creating animations with Photoshop which you can post on your profile. Check it out!

Hacking Myspace by John Pospisil

I just read Hacking Myspace by John Pospisil which is full of great tutorials and information about how to personalize your Myspace layout. It has everything in it from GIMP tutorials to CSS tricks to photography tips to promoting your profile. The book has information that anybody from a novice to a myspace celebrity can benefit from. I highly recommend checking it out!

Here is the info from the inside cover:

It's YourSpace

There are over 90 million profiles on MySpace. How do you make yours stand out? You use these programming tricks and techniques to tweak the look, feel, and content of your profile. You get the inside scoop on hot design and photography. You maximize the effects of HTML and CSS. And, if you happen to be a musician, you check out Chapter 30 to see how MySpace can launch your career. It's all in here. What are you waiting for? Make it all about you.

Complete code and instructions for these and more MySpace hacks:

* Embedding graphics
* Creating animated images
* Developing your own background
* Building custom cursors
* Changing profile text styles
* Getting kinky with links
* Adding a comments box
* Altering your contact table
* Redesigning the navigation bar
* Making DIV overlays

A companion Web site provides even more tricks and techniques.

Visit www.myspaceismyplace.com to find all code from this book, links to software and featured profiles, a reader forum, and more.