Very social media players

Gadget makers are taking a cue or two from MySpace, it appears. How so? Media players are increasingly social tools, just as MySpace made teen blogging a social phenomenon. In fact, media players and personal communicators are now being called "lifestyle devices." One example is Microsoft's Zune MP3 player, expected to launch this fall, which "aspires to be one part MySpace, one part iTunes and one part Xbox Live," Reuters reports. Then there's Sony's mylo, which stands for "my life online" and targets 18-to-24-year-olds who want their media, IM, Net-phone, and email capabilities everywhere, all the time, CBS News reports. That would be in addition to their cell-phone talking and texting options, which seems like one gadget too many to carry around, but I'm no 18-to-24-year-old, the Associated Press reports. Mylo "doubles as a portable media player. It can play music, photos and videos that are stored on its internal 1 gigabyte of flash memory or optional Memory Stick card. It also can stream songs between mylo users within the same network, as long as the users grant permission to share their music files." Sony has partnered with Yahoo and Google for IM (it's working on folding in AIM), and Skype for Net-based phoning.