According to a recent Nielsen/NetRatings survey, 46 million people visited MySpace in July 2006, each spending an average of two hours and 15 minutes on the site. So what makes MySpace so popular? First it lets users create their own free profile, including photos, videos, and music. Users can also completely customize the layout, colors, and text of their profiles including blogs, event announcements, bulletin posts, and more.

Extremely popular with teens and young adults, MySpace is part of a growing new trend on the Internet of “social networking” sites. Although there are multiple social networking sites online including Friendster, Facebook, and Xanga. MySpace is the most popular. It also has the most celebrities as real members. MySpace is so popular, in fact, that News Corp. bought it for $580 million.

Celebrities know that one of the benefits of being on MySpace is that when they make a post to their MySpace blog talking about something they're working on or announce an event such as a live appearance or autograph signing, their messages will be viewed directly by their fans without having to rely on email lists, spend a lot of money on advertising, etc. that may or may not get their message out in time.

To being contacting celebrities using MySpace, first set up your profile. Then you invite your friends to link their profiles to yours – and that’s when the fun begins! Most of the people linking to you and to your friends will have the same interests, live in the same town, etc. So it's a great way to keep in touch with old friends and also make new ones, which is why MySpace is called a "social networking" site. Think of it like six degrees of separation (but in actuality it's more like three degrees online!).

Although MySpace is currently used mostly by teens, more young adults and adults are signing up every day (including celebrities). So despite what you may have heard about old men setting up profiles on MySpace to lure young children, most people use it to keep in touch with other people like themselves and to make new friends. You can search for people by zip code, city, high school, college, networking category (marketing, publishing, etc.), and more. This lets you find other people you already know or would like to meet, because they share either the same background or the same interests, career, or hobbies you do.

MySpace allows its users to share intimate details about their life (sometimes a little too intimate!) that you would perhaps never learn without it since most people put on airs in person. As society becomes more and more socially cut off with technological advances like caller id, email, and text messages, people are now looking for more and more ways to connect on a personal level while still utilizing "cool" technology. MySpace lets them do just that, and celebrities are no exception. They can now communicate with their fans without having to give out their personal information. Now when they meet their fans they can say "look me up on MySpace and send me a message!"

Larger-than-life celebrities use MySpace to promote themselves. Madonna, for instance, posts news about her latest album releases, song downloads, screen savers, and more on her profile. Recently it linked to MTV.com so fans could vote for her in the five MTV Video Music Awards categories she was nominated for. Celebrities like Madonna make no qualms about using MySpace as a savvy marketing and promotional tool. As of this article she had 71,752 friends linked to her profile and 19,214 comments! And that doesn't even count the hundreds if not thousands of messages and new friend requests she probably receives on a daily basis.

However, many celebrities actually set up their profiles themselves, read their messages, and respond to fans directly. Janice Dickinson, the former "love her or hate her" judge on "America's Next Top Model" has her own profile. She used it to announce casting calls for her reality show "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency" on Oxygen, and lists Jose Canseco as one of her top friends. Adult star Jenna Jameson uses her profile to blog about her life and show off photos of herself with stars like Paris Hilton. And yes, Paris has her own profile too (with sister Nikki Hilton as one of her friends, of course!).

To set up your own MySpace profile, visit www.myspace.com and click on Sign Up in the top right-hand corner. From there, fill out the information it asks for and follow the rest of the instructions. After you've set up your profile, you can download profile templates from sites like MyGen. Do a search on Google for “myspace profile templates” to find other similar sites.

After you've set up your own MySpace profile, you can send private messages to celebrities you find after you add them as friends. Since most celebrities understand that when you add them as friends to your profile they may gain additional fans among your friends as well, they'll usually approve your friend request even though they don't know you. You can also post a comment on their page that includes your picture. In fact, a great way to request a free autographed photo from the star is to send he or she a message. Simply ask for an autographed photo, and be sure to include your name and address!