The big news about the yanking of Hoooka from Tila Tequila's MySpace profile gave the impression that Hoooka was banned from ALL MySpace profiles. Representatives of Hoooka clarified the situation via communication to Kyle Monson of AppScout:

As Nate mentioned in his comment, hoooka and specifically, Tila's hoooka does not depend on MySpace to stay alive. Hoooka is an embedded code widget that can be placed on any website, not just MySpace. Tila's hoooka continues to live on at other social networks as well as on her indie911 page. Also, please note that MySpace only asked Tila to take down her hoooka--they did not ban the code from the entire site. My personal hoooka is still up and functioning. I believe that MySpace is currently examining hoooka on a case by case basis. They have not yet made any attempt to completely ban the code. [bold emphasis mine.]

This qualification is very important. The original article in the NYTimes gave the impression that the freedom of choice of all MySpace users is being curtailed when in fact only Tila Tequila was warned. MySpace's Terms of Service has no credibility if it is not enforced against the most flagrant violations. Tila's use of Hoooka is most flagrant because her's is the most popular profile on the site. Tila needs MySpace a whole lot more than MySpace needs Tila; MySpace could probably afford to also alienate the small group of less popular Hoooka embedding musicians, but diplomatically it has chosen not to.

MySpace management has voiced regrets in the past over allowing YouTube to gain critical mass on the back of their service; this prominent enforcement action is a clear case of not wanting to repeat that mistake again. Snocap is their annointed music store service. Take it or leave it. A Snocap widget is not evident on her profile yet.

Popularity: 2% [?]