Liberal arts freshman Katie Howe wants to become a high school counselor and marry a fireman. Expect to find Oasis, Audioslave and The Foo Fighters on her iPod. “I Love Lucy,” “Saved by the Bell” and “Grey’s Anatomy” are some of her favorite shows. Then there’s the matter of sports. She’s been rock climbing and skydiving, and she roots for the New England Patriots.

Here’s the kicker: You can find out all of this before even talking to her. It just takes one look at her MySpace.com profile.

MySpace has emerged as the premier online destinations for college-age adults like Howe to maintain a personalized home page, connect with friends and meet people with similar interests.

“I’ve moved probably three times in the past two years.. so I got sucked in so I could stay in contact with all my friends,” said Howe, the moderator for the Sacramento State MySpace bulletin board.

It’s not just Howe who has been sucked in. MySpace has attracted over 22 million users since it was launched in January 2004. According to published reports in the San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times, online market researcher comScore Media Metrix found that MySpace generates more hits – the number of times a page is viewed monthly – than Google. The only domains that see more interest are Yahoo, AOL, MSN and eBay.

Statistics available on the Web site show that there are 5,972 current Sac State students and 2,113 alumni with registered profiles.

Business administration freshman Michele Danthon is one of them. She’s had a profile since high school and she checks it out every day.

“You always have new messages, new comments,” Danthon said. “Something happens with my page about every day.”

Starting a profile is easy. MySpace generates revenue through ad banners placed on the top of every page. That keeps it free.

Users put as much about themselves onto their profile as they want. There’s an interest section to list favorite movies, TV shows and music. Users can include where they went to high school, write a detailed description about themselves and even set up a blog to rant and rave.

And of course, there are the personal photos. Anyone who has been on MySpace has seen the variety of close up shots of users smiling for the camera or contorting their face to get the best laugh. Party photos and self-portraits of women in their bedrooms remain popular.

“People use that as a dating service; like that’s the only way they meet people,” Howe said. “You have people on there who are on there only because their friends made them get on there. You have people who spend more time on their profiles than they do working at a job. You have people on there who put half-naked pictures on there to get more (profile) views.”

Dan Taylor, a graduating senior in kinesiology, doesn’t have a MySpace profile but cautions people from putting too much personal information on their profiles.

“I just think people need to be careful, especially with putting pictures up and stuff,” Taylor said. “People do have access to that. Say if it’s a young girl or something. You never know what people may do.”

Another draw to the Web site is the focus on music. Over 350,000 bands and solo artists use MySpace to connect with fans through streaming music, a list of tour dates and often times a well kept blog.

Journalism junior Roshaun Davis is a part of the local hip-hop act Righteous Movement. He set up a MySpace account for the group back in December. Now people as far away as Hong Kong are listening to “Competition” and “What’s A Man.”

“We thought it was a really good idea to set up a band profile to start reaching people in different parts of the world,” said Davis, an emcee by the name of Tais. “I noticed it was a good networking tool. It was a good way of getting out of the city without actually going out of the city.”

It remains to be seen whether MySpace will continue to be as popular as it has today. Other Web sites, such as www.friendster.com and www.livejournal.com, were on top only to be surpassed by MySpace.

Computer engineering freshman Nathan Vargas is on MySpace every day contacting old friends and trying to meet new people. He said he enjoys the Web site but he’s not sure how long it will continue to hold his interest.

“It’s getting a bit boring because everyone has it now,” Vargas said. “I like starting new trends. I like finding new things.”

Nate Miller can be reached at [email protected].