In another bamboozling move, MySpace has now blocked Stickam webcam codes. At the end of last week, the team reported that newly-created Stickam widgets wouldn't work on MySpace, and yesterday I was forwarded an email (thanks James) from Stickam that claimed the widgets had been "blocked" by MySpace. I assumed that they were being affected by some kind of glitch that prevents Flash embeds working properly - something along the lines of the MySpace update that broke many Flash widgets (it was supposedly a reaction to the MySpace hack). As it turns out, there's something more sinister afoot: today I logged in to MySpace and realized that all links to Stickam are being blocked. If you try to link to Stickam.com anywhere on your profile - either inserting a widget or using a plain old link, it will be removed. Apparently it's been this way for a few days. Since only links to Stickam.com are affected, it seems that MySpace is intentionally blocking the service.
You might remember that MySpace tried a similar tactic with YouTube in December 2005, blocking the site to make way for MySpace Video. But YouTube was already too popular to kill off, and a user uprising forced them to re-instate YouTube videos. In January, the same thing happened with the ad-supported video service Revver, leading to complaints. The next day, the block was lifted. I'm trying hard to see how this could have been an accident, but it's difficult to see MySpace's case here.
So the question is: do they see Stickam as a threat? Do they have some kind of webcam product in the works? More crucially: are there any MySpace codes that were blocked and never reinstated, simply because the provider was too small at the time and bloggers didn't get wind of the story? I'm a massive fan of MySpace, and I know that some of the MySpace employees read this blog, so I'd be interested to know if there's a strategy here.
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