There are many, many social networking sites around. In fact, a good designer could probably write a more fully-featured and stable one than MySpace in a matter of hours.

But don't bother. The value of MySpace is not the technology. It's very poorly programmed with a mediocre feature set. The value is that it has millions of users. If I want to find my old school chums, MySpace is the place to go, even though it sucks.

If you want to make a successful website, don't write MySpace better. You need something new and unique. Sure it can overlap, but don't write something that requires you to have a million users to be competitive. MySpace started out as a place for bands. Only once it had grown could it be what it is now: a place to find people you knew in real life. Your site, too, will need a hook beyond 'everyone you've ever known is here', at least until they are.