Funny how things change. A few years ago, among AOL's main selling points to consumers was that subscribing allowed internet users access to well-organized, (supposedly) premium content, in contrast to the utter chaos of the rest of the web. Now, writes BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine, the stratospheric success of MySpace (which, for my readers over the age of 30, is a Santa Monica-based social networking site facilitating the sex lives of teenage Bright Eyes fans) is prompting AOL to add some user-created internet-like chaos into the mix in the form of an Instant Messaging-based MySpace-aping social networking feature, code-named AIMspace. Fine writes:

Despite its New Media DNA, AOL is as Big Media as online players come -- that is, it's an established mass-market brand not especially renowned for risk-taking. Its massive user base and the popularity of AIM and areas geared to music and games suggest AOL could be the one Big Media player to create, rather than buy, its own social network. But social networks thrive on a sort of chaos that's anathema to AOL, and the ways in which AOL seeks to tame the wilder aspects of the Web are at odds with MySpace's loose vibe. (That MySpace is a big online hook-up joint doesn't always register in press accounts.)

Kudos to Fine for letting the cat out of the bag about that last point. (Full disclosure: Fine is married to mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby.)