News International has sent the social networking world into a tizz by saying its US-based MySpace.com will hit the UK within a month.

According to the BBC, Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinson told a conference in Las Vegas that the UK launch was on track, and that the initial plan was to “tap into the music scene".

The site reportedly has 32 million active users and pitches itself as "an online community that lets you meet your friends' friends". Despite being just two years old, Murchoch coughed up $580m for the site last year, in what was seen as a late bid to get into the net media market.

The site’s focus is overwhelmingly on the youth market, through a mix of blogs, chatrooms, videos and other services. A quick perusal of the site’s front page doesn’t throw up many people over 30. Or who are less than moderately good-looking come to that. The US site – like its putative UK sibling – has a hefty slant towards music.

MySpace has made enough of an impact on the US psyche to prompt authorities at Utah’s Brigham Young University to warn about the dangers of the site. Meanwhile, a debate rages about whether parents have the right to view their offspring’s online musings on what is after all a public site site

Perhaps people should be more concerned that, unlike previous generations, today’s youth are likely to see their moralistic rantings, crushes and fashion and hairstyling disasters preserved online, for eternity, instead of safely consigned to the attic, where they belong.®