The full title is Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America by Julia Angwin.
The book was a solid look at a tangle of people and relationships. It’s amazing how much strange luck played a part of Myspace’s history– for a throwaway desperate idea, it was amazingly successful. It’s also interesting how many of Myspace’s unique features– allowing widgets and custom html– came about as a result of bad programming or oversight, not planning.
Actually, that’s the take away of the whole book– sometimes luck shines down. Even the successful widget makers were fantastically lucky, turning huge profits because they released something wildly popular– often among several equally good competitors.
The book is tightly written, in a series of very short (often 3 page) chapters. That makes the read fly along– it’s very easy to say “one more section” and “one more” until the book is through.