Will Kürlich Kerl
Banned
Challenge: Have Myspace be the dominant social network instead of Facebook.
AHC: Myspace stays dominant
- Thread starter Will Kürlich Kerl
- Start date
Facebook's main interest was the fact that it appealled to a wider age range. It was initially only for university students and then allowed some younger teenagers to join if they had friends there already. Even though it wasn't as massively popular as MySpace, this meant that they had a decent foothold among younger people. At the same time, when it became open to the general public it also catered to older people. MySpace by that point was very much playing into their reputation as a young, "hip" place with strong ties to various music scenes (from what I've seen, they're embracing that now). Facebook never did, they tried to retain a "cool" and trendy vibe while still being relatively neutral on the type of user they would like to attract.
Facebook's cleaner look was also a big deal. I remember that a lot of people complained that it lacked as many options to change your profile layout but that was also what convinced many people to join. By that point, MySpace's aesthetics were often made fun of and were the target of lots of complaints by people who felt that this made pages look "tacky". For older people, or people who were there for business reasons, this was a huge incentive -- it allowed their pages to retain a more professional and serious look, without looking downright awful like MySpace's default did. People who didn't like the lack of features stuck around because you could still add a few apps and because by that point there were already so many people there, and in social networking what matters is where your friends are.
Facebook also had more features that MySpace lacked. It was harder to navigate at first, but at the same time, it also meant that once you got the hang of it it was easier to stay organised. For example, I remember articles in which people said they liked that Facebook allowed them to reply directly to a comment, rather than leaving a separate one on someone's profile as a reply.
I feel like MySpace was a bit doomed by that point. The fact that they allowed everyone in meant that eventually people became tired of how popular its was -- people are hipster snobs at heart.
They also tried too hard to appeal to a younger crowd by allowing for profile costumization and investing strongly in the music-related features once they realised their potential, without also keeping an eye on the needs and preferences of other age groups. By 2008, they were still using the same basic tools and options they had since almost the beginning because they didn't want to drive users away. In trying to appeal to everyone they ended up focusing solely in a single user type.
Maybe Facebook can remain invitation-only, so it never becomes as popular. Or MySpace upgrades a bit and gives Facebook a run for their money, maybe they could even add an option to allow users to switch off custom graphics when viewing profiles. They add more business and networking oriented options, and change their image to something more neutral. If they don't do it at that exact time, maybe they become worthy competitors by the time the average user starts complaining about Facebook and privacy and people return to MySpace. Facebook could also try to allow more layout options, putting people off.
Facebook's cleaner look was also a big deal. I remember that a lot of people complained that it lacked as many options to change your profile layout but that was also what convinced many people to join. By that point, MySpace's aesthetics were often made fun of and were the target of lots of complaints by people who felt that this made pages look "tacky". For older people, or people who were there for business reasons, this was a huge incentive -- it allowed their pages to retain a more professional and serious look, without looking downright awful like MySpace's default did. People who didn't like the lack of features stuck around because you could still add a few apps and because by that point there were already so many people there, and in social networking what matters is where your friends are.
Facebook also had more features that MySpace lacked. It was harder to navigate at first, but at the same time, it also meant that once you got the hang of it it was easier to stay organised. For example, I remember articles in which people said they liked that Facebook allowed them to reply directly to a comment, rather than leaving a separate one on someone's profile as a reply.
I feel like MySpace was a bit doomed by that point. The fact that they allowed everyone in meant that eventually people became tired of how popular its was -- people are hipster snobs at heart.
They also tried too hard to appeal to a younger crowd by allowing for profile costumization and investing strongly in the music-related features once they realised their potential, without also keeping an eye on the needs and preferences of other age groups. By 2008, they were still using the same basic tools and options they had since almost the beginning because they didn't want to drive users away. In trying to appeal to everyone they ended up focusing solely in a single user type.Maybe Facebook can remain invitation-only, so it never becomes as popular. Or MySpace upgrades a bit and gives Facebook a run for their money, maybe they could even add an option to allow users to switch off custom graphics when viewing profiles. They add more business and networking oriented options, and change their image to something more neutral. If they don't do it at that exact time, maybe they become worthy competitors by the time the average user starts complaining about Facebook and privacy and people return to MySpace. Facebook could also try to allow more layout options, putting people off.
Just have it not be populated entirely by adolescent girls and garage bands.
But what is the "challenge" ... who cares. The impact would be nonexistant.
I was on Myspace before I migrated over to Facebook around 2008 and I remember distinctly the reason why I did and it was pretty much summed up perfectly by The Piano.
When I first signed on to Myspace (maybe in 2006?), I was just out of high school and established an annoying profile with a ton of photos, background music, tacky font and a background picture that was loud - which everyone seemed to be doing at the time. It clashed and some profiles literally took over 30 seconds to load because of all the gifs, music files and video files people would add to their profile.
Eventually, as I grew, it became annoying. There was little interaction outside sending private messages and leaving lame comments on people's profiles (often comments were littered with gif files) and it just seemed like it was going downhill - you know, it was the trendy, upscale neighborhood in 2007 and by 2008, the undesirables moved in and ruined it further.
So, I migrated over to Facebook around this time and the original Facebook, that I remember, was much different than it is today. It was still well behind Myspace in users and hits, and it's not hard to see why - it was very basic and the interaction was limited (you had a wall, but it wasn't necessarily at the forefront like it is today and there were no such thing as a status update yet).
In fact, I look back at my Facebook archives and I see I joined in 2007, and it wasn't until mid-2008 that I actually started posting statuses (so, I'm assuming they didn't exist until then).
Once statuses were introduced, communication grew and more and more people moved over there and by 2009, I think that's when it really moved past Myspace and became the number one social network on the internet.
So, to keep Myspace, I think you'd have to go back to 2007 or so and totally overhaul the look of the site. It was just too cluttered and basic, which led to the mass exodus. Maybe Myspace can bring a universal change to the profile structure, limiting profile uniqueness, but cleaning the profiles up extensively like Facebook. Then somehow introduce a status update around this time (before Facebook), which promotes more interaction between users.
But also Myspace went through a host of bad publicity around this point due to adware and viruses infecting computers because of how much junk people added to their profiles (limiting profiles to one universal look would certainly curb that) - as well as child predators preying on younger kids who had signed up to the site (since it was geared more toward teens at one point). Put an age limit on it as well and it's not overrun by a bunch of preteen and teen users whose profiles are a mess.
Do that and maybe it keeps its users and expands to more college-aged and older people who like the new look and feel of Myspace (and the interaction that wasn't there during the early stages of Facebook).
When I first signed on to Myspace (maybe in 2006?), I was just out of high school and established an annoying profile with a ton of photos, background music, tacky font and a background picture that was loud - which everyone seemed to be doing at the time. It clashed and some profiles literally took over 30 seconds to load because of all the gifs, music files and video files people would add to their profile.
Eventually, as I grew, it became annoying. There was little interaction outside sending private messages and leaving lame comments on people's profiles (often comments were littered with gif files) and it just seemed like it was going downhill - you know, it was the trendy, upscale neighborhood in 2007 and by 2008, the undesirables moved in and ruined it further.
So, I migrated over to Facebook around this time and the original Facebook, that I remember, was much different than it is today. It was still well behind Myspace in users and hits, and it's not hard to see why - it was very basic and the interaction was limited (you had a wall, but it wasn't necessarily at the forefront like it is today and there were no such thing as a status update yet).
In fact, I look back at my Facebook archives and I see I joined in 2007, and it wasn't until mid-2008 that I actually started posting statuses (so, I'm assuming they didn't exist until then).
Once statuses were introduced, communication grew and more and more people moved over there and by 2009, I think that's when it really moved past Myspace and became the number one social network on the internet.
So, to keep Myspace, I think you'd have to go back to 2007 or so and totally overhaul the look of the site. It was just too cluttered and basic, which led to the mass exodus. Maybe Myspace can bring a universal change to the profile structure, limiting profile uniqueness, but cleaning the profiles up extensively like Facebook. Then somehow introduce a status update around this time (before Facebook), which promotes more interaction between users.
But also Myspace went through a host of bad publicity around this point due to adware and viruses infecting computers because of how much junk people added to their profiles (limiting profiles to one universal look would certainly curb that) - as well as child predators preying on younger kids who had signed up to the site (since it was geared more toward teens at one point). Put an age limit on it as well and it's not overrun by a bunch of preteen and teen users whose profiles are a mess.
Do that and maybe it keeps its users and expands to more college-aged and older people who like the new look and feel of Myspace (and the interaction that wasn't there during the early stages of Facebook).
One way would be for FB to start with their "privacy is dead" shit earlier and people would be turned away by it. Though of course if there are not so many users there then whole "we'll take your private info and sell it to highest bidder" doesn't take off.
And as others pointed out, FB looks much "cleaner". So you could combine the two, have FB start to take off, start with their data collection earlier, when public becomes more aware MS decides to overhaul itself to become "cleaner".
And as others pointed out, FB looks much "cleaner". So you could combine the two, have FB start to take off, start with their data collection earlier, when public becomes more aware MS decides to overhaul itself to become "cleaner".
Respectfully snipped.
Weren't there MySpace equivalents of status updates? At least I think I remember seeing a similar feature, although I might be mistaken. If they didn't introduce it before FB did then it must have been around the same time. Making them more interactive would certainly help, if I remember right you couldn't comment on them directly can you can on Facebook.
If I recall correctly, there was a minimum age limit on MySpace. I believe you had to be at least 13 to sign up. In its early years younger users even had more privacy options; if you were younger than 16 or so you could set your profile to be viewable only to other underage people or to your friends. Back then, adult users couldn't restrict their profile views so I still remember some who would set their age to 14 or something to be able to make it friends only. Then they (finally) allowed everyone to have access to the same privacy settings. The same profile of people who are too young is probably universal on the Internet and happens on Facebook as well, a couple of years ago one of my younger relatives was 11 and had a profile there (as did his friends) until his parents forced him to delete it.
Facebook's minimum age is 13 too, and as far as I'm aware they don't actively police pages so unless kids are honest about their age or get reported they won't really do anything about it. The difference in the number of cases on MySpace vs. Facebook, is probably the presence of parents. The parents of children who are in their early teens now are probably more technologically aware so it's easier to be aware of what their kids are doing on the computer. Parents or other relatives probably have their own Facebook presence so it's harder for their kids to hide it. The profile decorations also meant it was probably harder for a kid to avoid revealing their age if everything about their page screamed "pre-teen" and I believe there were very few settings to filter out messages. With MySpace I feel like the in-site culture itself also encouraged those situations, just remember the scene queen/king trend and promo trains.
I agree, though, maybe if MySpace found a way to deal with that more effectively things would have been different. And if they did away with those bulletins, they were fun for a day and then they became annoying.
I'm fairly certain that there have been controversies surrounding Facebook's security and privacy issues since at least 2007. There's a Wiki (blergh, but useful sometimes) entry here that details a few over the years, it seems it was already drawing attention as far back as 2005. The thing is that it was just not as mainstream as it is now so the issues got less attention worldwide.
You're right, though, some strategic timing that led to MySpace getting a makeover around the time that FB's policies started to get attention would do wonders for MS's survival.
An aesthetic overhaul can be as much of a killer as a saver. Whenever you rearrange anything on a site, there will be a lot of users griping that they can't find anything any more. That's what happened to Digg, which all but died very quickly after its redecoration.
Myspace's fall is all but inevitable after its 2007 peak; it would need to be redecorated from around 2005, just before it became the pop-cultural icon it ended up as.
The thing is, Myspace tried to add features and rearrange things so that it could compete with Facebook which was then growing quickly. It just wasn't enough.
Myspace's fall is all but inevitable after its 2007 peak; it would need to be redecorated from around 2005, just before it became the pop-cultural icon it ended up as.
The thing is, Myspace tried to add features and rearrange things so that it could compete with Facebook which was then growing quickly. It just wasn't enough.
The users thing only happens depending on the number of users and its demographic. Many people have complained about Facebook changes like the new timeline layout or the "stalker feed" but very few people actually left. By the time MySpace changed its features, Facebook was already massively popular. Correct me if I'm wrong, but digg was more of an hang-out for people who were more invested in technology than the average teenager or the average suburban parent, so unlike changes that happen on MySpace or Facebook, its users weren't so prone to simply shrugging it off and compromising.
I also disagree that MySpace's features should have changed in 2005. Maybe things like adding status updates and other similar things, but certainly not doing away with custom profiles. Between 2005-2007, custom profiles and the presence of many musicians were two of its most important features. If you do away with those, there's nothing that people can't find in other sites that were already around. Sites like Xanga, piczo, etc. would probably see an influx of users and their small-but-existent social networking features such as adding friends could easily have been expanding. For bands that often relied on the ethos of being unique and different, that (and the migrating audience) could also have caused them to jump ship. And that's if MySpace even becomes massively popular at all.
It's important to remember that being able to show off their own personality on their pages was very important for teenagers at the time when mantaining their online presence, especially where interacting with others was involved.
Facebook had the "clean" look already, but even when it opened its doors to high school students it was still second among them to MySpace -- and that's probably why.
I think that making MySpace look cleaner or at the very least restricting the type of codes that could be used would have been a good idea but only later on. One of the big issues is that it just didn't grow up with its users, so giving them a choice to stick with their favourite social network while also catering to their new priorities (university, jobs, ...) would have helped. It would probably have contributed to MySpace's popularity among university students and young professionals and subsequentely among older people as well. Once your MySpace page stops being about glitterfied 420 graphics there's nothing stopping you from teaching your parents how to keep in touch with you via the site.
Facebook had a good timing in opening up to the general public. It also started catering to international audiences. In its more closed days the vast majority of users were from English-speaking countries or English-speaking schools. Young people outside of English-speaking countries were often quite divided between MySpace and sites like fotolog or hi5 (or the Francophone skyrock). Facebook, on the other hand, once it opened its doors to everyone tried to so on a global level. I still remember that several years ago when you had foreign friends you were probably more active on different social networks, now almost everyone will just ask you if you have a Facebook.
A big problem, which I think drove people to customize their profiles on Myspace, was how cheap the default profiles looked.
It was just terribly outdated by 2008 and it was a general look they kept for a few years before it was too late and any adjustment was pointless since they had lost a huge number of users to Facebook.
Myspace did bring about a 'lite' interface in 2009 that made it possible to get the default view on every profile so that you weren't overwhelmed by gifs, music and video files - unfortunately, again, you're looking at a period where it had lost a good amount of its users and it was too late to recover.
So, maybe an updated default profile that was a bit more cleaner and modern - but also potentially a Myspace Lite coming out in 2007 or 2008 so users who were turned off by the abusing of custom profiles stick around a bit longer.
It was just terribly outdated by 2008 and it was a general look they kept for a few years before it was too late and any adjustment was pointless since they had lost a huge number of users to Facebook.
Myspace did bring about a 'lite' interface in 2009 that made it possible to get the default view on every profile so that you weren't overwhelmed by gifs, music and video files - unfortunately, again, you're looking at a period where it had lost a good amount of its users and it was too late to recover.
So, maybe an updated default profile that was a bit more cleaner and modern - but also potentially a Myspace Lite coming out in 2007 or 2008 so users who were turned off by the abusing of custom profiles stick around a bit longer.
Myspace refused to recognize Facebook as a serious threat until it was too late. Perhaps it would have helped if they'd made customizable profiles a bit "cleaner": everything about the site always felt massively chaotic and I think that broadened Facebook's appeal to a wider demographic range. Myspace never grew up, which is why it was clobbered by Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook juggernaut.
enough of this nonsense about the Arab uprisings being a facebook revolution.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...onsible-for-the-arab-spring-after-all/244314/
also, how helpful was the internet in Iran? Syria? or post uprising Eypt, Tunisia, Libya, were autocrats and violence are raging but ingored by hte world.
second, if myspace survived it would play the same (if any) role facebook played.
Grey Wolf
Donor
The funny thing is that my only experience of MySpace was when they decided to completely ditch the customisable HTML format in favour of another, that was not explained properly, didn't have notes anywhere, and seemed poorly thought out - as a web designer, a band asked me to do their profile for them, but all the explanations as to how no longer worked, whilst whatever did now work did not have any instructions available to find.
That was my first AND LAST investigation of MySpace
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
That was my first AND LAST investigation of MySpace
Best Regards
Grey Wolf