Buying MySpace: $580million…Hacking MySpace: Priceless

Start with MySpace, the social networking site acquired by News Corp earlier this year for $580million. Similar to Tribe, LinkedIn and the like, MySpace allows its members to create links to each other.

Add one bored teen (“samy”) with scripting skills, who has the epiphany that “popularity begets popularity.” Samy not only comes up with a hack that allows him to automatically add himself as a “friend” to anyone who views his profile, but takes the notion one step further so that it goes viral…anyone connected to anyone connected to him becomes connected as well.

You can see where this is going. An excerpt from samy’s log of the incident:

10/04, 12:34 pm: You have 73 friends.

I decided to release my little popularity program. I’m going to be famous…among my friends.

1 hour later, 1:30 am: You have 73 friends and 1 friend request.
One of my friends’ girlfriend looks at my profile…I approve her inadvertent friend request and go to bed grinning.

7 hours later, 8:35 am: You have 74 friends and 221 friend requests.
Woah. I did not expect this much. I’m surprised it even worked.

1 hour later, 9:30 am: You have 74 friends and 480 friend requests.
Oh wait, it’s exponential, isn’t it. [ed. – yes, samy, it is.]

1 hour later, 10:30 am: You have 518 friends and 561 friend requests.
Oh crap…

3 hours later, 1:30 pm: You have 2,503 friends and 6,373 friend requests.
I’m canceling my account…

5 hours later, 6:20 pm
I timidly go to my profile to view the friend requests. 2,503 friends. 917,084 friend requests.

Here’s the whole thing.