Myspace
Myspace. Does anyone still use that ancient social networking site for social networking anymore? Most people I have talked to only get on it from time to time to check up on Bands or listen to music and the occasional video. But when was the last time you logged in and used it for social networking?
I know I've probably logged in once in the last 6 months. The one time that I did log in I was alerted that I could now set up my very own Myspace email. I don't know anyone who would want this except for maybe the bands and radio stations using Myspace.
I don't know why Myspace has not become more of a Media social networking site. Every time I log on they still seem to be trying to compete with Facebook and Twitter. If Myspace would just accept their fate and realize that the community is really using it for media sharing puropses they would be fine. The only way for Myspace to be successful is to differentiate itself from Facebook and Twitter and focus on what they have become and what their users are using it for.
Myspace has tried several things. Such as changing it's tag line depending on what part of the site you are on. For instance if you are checking out just music it says "Myspace a place for music" instead of "Myspace a place for friends." Still I think Myspace should just cave and focus on what they are good at. And that is sharing Media. It is perfect for Bands, Radio stations, and things like that.
This is of course all just my opinion but I did ask several people about it and of course I asked Twitter. I believe everyone or almost everyone only used Myspace to check up on Radio stations and find bands or check out band tour dates and one or two who still used it for posting pictures to share with friends and family.
Let me know what you think and leave me a comment. Or leave a voice mail on my Google Voice!
And yes I am going to start blogging regularly again. I just got my new Kodak Zi8!
Keep it Real
Comments
MySpace always reminded me of the early Geocities or Tripod webpages of the early web. Give the people some control and copy and paste templates.
It was the only site that users seemed to accept that it would error out half of the time. I got an account very late in 2002. I gave up on the whole idea when it would crash my webbrowser because someone had so many animated GIF's with a horrible background with many songs starting to play at once with videos all over the place.
I deleted my account and never looked back. I lost a great deal of faith in humanity when a real estate agent gave me his card with his MySpace page as his personal website. If you ever look at answers.yahoo.com you will find lots of annoying teenagers trying to figure out how to make templates or get to myspace at school.
But I agree it's lame and try to avoid the site at all costs.
People like structure, some customization is good like twitter but too much just hurts the eyes.
Why haven't you blogged recently...I miss your "musings". Get busy writing IE! :-)
JD