This may be a bold statement to make, but I'm going to start off this post by answering the question I posed in the subject line: Facebook. Yes, facebook is winning the social network race and interestingly enough, Myspace has proven that.
Myspace, at one time a small start up just like most sites, has become a staple of teen culture as well as culture in general within the past months and couple of years. When it was founded by Tom Anderson and Christopher DeWolfe in 2003, Myspace was a revolutionary idea: a website that would successfully (key word) allow people all over the world to connect and meet new people. Skipping over their successful years, of course, Myspace was eventually sold to News Corp. This sale was just the beginning of a long downhill path away from their original goal and towards a site that would be considered by many "a sell-out" or simply "a waste of time."
While eventually I do intend to compare Myspace and Facebook in detail, this is just a short article citing their recent feature addition as evidence of their proximity to demise. Myspace recently blatanly copied Facebook by adding a status feature. This text box that has been placed on each user's home page allows the user to set their status, a tiny message in which their current activity or location is displayed. This was a sad move by Myspace, a move that expressed both fear and conceitedness. By outright copying Facebook's innovative feature, Myspace indicated a) that they're scared of Facebook's rapid success and felt the need to steal one of the features in order to get ahead in the "game" and b) that they believe because they (News Corporation) has a team of thousands of lawyers and Facebook has a mere 20 (aproximate) employees, they have the right to bully them.
In conclusion, Myspace's actions have expressed their fear of the success of Facebook and have overall served as an indication of their progress on the road to eventual demise. So, thank you Myspace. We all appreciate the new status feature.
EDIT (July 15): I should clarify my previously expressed opinion that Myspace is failing. I meant to say that Myspace is failing as a social network. I strongly believe, however, that they will continue to be a thriving destination for music and movie lovers alike.
[Thanks for reading. I intend to write a more detailed article as soon as possible outlining the differences between Myspace and Facebook.]
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Myspace vs. Facebook: Who's winning?
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2 comments:
I'm not entirely sure that MySpace adding a status feature is a direct cop-out - surely it's just giving the public what they seem to want, no one criticised Google for making a search engine when Yahoo already existed. The two sites' aims are also different. As much as it is possible to meet new people on Facebook it's far more about having a way to keep in touch with friends, whether best or met once. MySpace on the other hand is far more about people getting a 'net personality' that can be viewed by anyone, for the non-net-user who doesn't really get the world of blogging, web hosting and forums yet, but wants to express themselves somewhere. It's certainly proved successful as far as it's Music subsiduary goes, and I think this is going to be where it's main focus rests at in a few years time.
m1ke,
I appreciate your well-thought out comment. I felt the need to respond to it because I do, in fact, agree with you on one of your points. I should clarify my previously expressed opinion that Myspace is failing. I meant to say that Myspace is failing as a social network. I strongly believe, however, that they will continue to be a thriving destination for music and movie lovers alike. Again, I appreciate your comment and am going to clarify this in my post. Thanks again.
-Jeff
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