MySpace: Like your parents basement. Bad behavior, language and lack of decorum-- no problem. This is where the "fun" parties were.
Facebook: Like your parents living room. Don't spill anything on the carpet because it will stain and be there forever. Only "nice" friends are allowed. The parents are monitoring everything.
Amazing how Myspace has about fallen off the face of the earth. I remember 5 or 6 years ago at the height of Myspace, it was getting harder for me to stay on top of the local music scene, because bands began to give up on posting flyers in bars. Posting flyers took time and money, while Myspace was free and 99% of their fans were on it anyway.
This isn't too surprising. The early versions of social networking (MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, etc.) didn't manage to adapt quickly enough to maintain relevance.
Facebook faces the same risk down the line. Sure, they've done much better at adapting and finding ways to hold the interest of users, but there's no guarantee that they will continue to do so.
I'm not entirely sure it was 'adaptation' that was the issue.
It wasn't that Facebook adapted and MySpace didn't; it was more that Facebook started off in a totally different direction from MySpace, and it turned out that the market preferred Facebook's way. To focus on just a single difference that's probably the most obvious to casual users, Myspace allowed users a great deal of flexibility in designing their own pages (poorly), Facebook didn't and still doesn't, and basically presents a standardized page for each user with their information on it. There's a significant 'philosophical difference' there. Those differences extended beyond design to their user-acquisition strategy, which created the network effects that allowed Facebook to crush Myspace among college users.
Bluntly, the market decided it preferred a nicely manicured, access-controlled walled garden to the free-for-all of Myspace.
Interestingly, though, I think Facebook has now opened itself up to everyone to the point where it risks getting "Myspaced" itself; if influential users were to suddenly jump ship to something else, Facebook could become about as cool as having a Myspace page or Hotmail email address, and an exodus could follow.
Facebook built itself in large part on exclusivity but has attempted to move away from it in order to grow. They're trying to walk a very delicate edge and I suspect that they'll fall off eventually.
They tried to reestablish the brand with a general focus on entertainment, but nobody was buying it.
I'd say up until the last six months, they still had 80%+ of the artist market using their service. You can't give that up...but they did. Now every artist is spreading out to sites like Bandcamp.
without the artists, what do they have? a social network? ha!
Myspace has been confined to the "special needs" area of the interned for quite a while, however it's a shame that this news article has come out as it's aparently in advance of an official notice that effects the lives of 600 people.
I don't see how the public interest in this trumps the lack of respect to the employees. Shame.
Maybe this is too small scale to be relevant, but i recently designed a site for a rockabilly clothes webstore, with a complete panel of tools: myspace (traditional friending, exchanging thankyous), facebook (fanpage & paying ads), google ads and twitter... And since day 1, myspace has been the nr. 1 referrer (to such an extent that bandwidth quotas exploded, and my customer had to upgrade their hosting plan). So I would say that for some niches, myspace is still nr. 1.
Also, coding css for myspace is really fun, if you like a good challenge
[+] [-] angdis|15 years ago|reply
MySpace: Like your parents basement. Bad behavior, language and lack of decorum-- no problem. This is where the "fun" parties were.
Facebook: Like your parents living room. Don't spill anything on the carpet because it will stain and be there forever. Only "nice" friends are allowed. The parents are monitoring everything.
RIP MySpace!
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmaggard|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben1040|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmj|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tallanvor|15 years ago|reply
Facebook faces the same risk down the line. Sure, they've done much better at adapting and finding ways to hold the interest of users, but there's no guarantee that they will continue to do so.
[+] [-] Kadin|15 years ago|reply
It wasn't that Facebook adapted and MySpace didn't; it was more that Facebook started off in a totally different direction from MySpace, and it turned out that the market preferred Facebook's way. To focus on just a single difference that's probably the most obvious to casual users, Myspace allowed users a great deal of flexibility in designing their own pages (poorly), Facebook didn't and still doesn't, and basically presents a standardized page for each user with their information on it. There's a significant 'philosophical difference' there. Those differences extended beyond design to their user-acquisition strategy, which created the network effects that allowed Facebook to crush Myspace among college users.
Bluntly, the market decided it preferred a nicely manicured, access-controlled walled garden to the free-for-all of Myspace.
Interestingly, though, I think Facebook has now opened itself up to everyone to the point where it risks getting "Myspaced" itself; if influential users were to suddenly jump ship to something else, Facebook could become about as cool as having a Myspace page or Hotmail email address, and an exodus could follow.
Facebook built itself in large part on exclusivity but has attempted to move away from it in order to grow. They're trying to walk a very delicate edge and I suspect that they'll fall off eventually.
[+] [-] PatrickTulskie|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] citricsquid|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thewordpainter|15 years ago|reply
They tried to reestablish the brand with a general focus on entertainment, but nobody was buying it.
I'd say up until the last six months, they still had 80%+ of the artist market using their service. You can't give that up...but they did. Now every artist is spreading out to sites like Bandcamp.
without the artists, what do they have? a social network? ha!
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Spoutingshite|15 years ago|reply
I don't see how the public interest in this trumps the lack of respect to the employees. Shame.
[+] [-] beoba|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JacobAldridge|15 years ago|reply
http://failbook.failblog.org/2010/12/17/funny-facebook-fails...
[+] [-] fwdbureau|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dangrover|15 years ago|reply