Myspacification

Once considered to be a passing fad among the likes of Pogs, trick yo-yo's and pet rocks, the internet startup has once again retaken and stirred public interest. Piggybacking on the hype of buzzwords such as Web 2.0 and "social networking," sites such as MySpace and Facebook have received many new devoted users, created a new form of online procrastination and have drawn the interest of potential investors. The Wall Street Journal recently valued Facebook at 15 billion dollars based largely in part to the number of people who are exposed to Facebook and the number of people who will eventually be exposed to Facebook.

This is an interesting turn of events because while MySpace has already been bought out by Rupert Murdoch for what now seems like a bargain at $580 million dollars, Facebook has yet to be overtaken by a larger entity. An interesting dissertation by Danah Boyd (2007), "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace" which can be read here states how Facebook and Myspace creates a dichotomy of users with MySpace dominating younger and lower income individuals and Facebook dominating the college aged and higher income individuals. She uses the tools of ethnography and social anthropology to gather her research:

For example, I have analyzed over 10,000 MySpace profiles, clocked over 2000 hours surfing and observing what happens on MySpace, and formally interviewed 90 teens in 7 states with a variety of different backgrounds and demographics. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. I ride buses to observe teens; I hang out at fast food joints and malls. I talk to parents, teachers, marketers, politicians, pastors, and technology creators. I read, I observe, I document.

I for one have not logged nearly as much research and do not have a MySpace page but am partial to believing her thesis and her theory. Nearly every musician whether up and coming, established, or a bona fide superstar promotes and advertises themselves through a MySpace page. Politicians are much more likely to create a Facebook page before they are to venture into MySpace's domain. The advertisements that grace the homepage of Facebook usually have more to do with credit cards, student loans, and car advertisements than they do with music, pop culture, and celebrity gossip.

I do believe however, that even though Facebook has not been bought out by a larger corporate interest yet, that Facebook is going down the slippery slope that MySpace has already traversed. Whether or not this perpetuates or debunks Boyd's theory on class division among social networking users, it will, if it has not already, create a lowest denominator product that will result in much less networking and will devalue the utility of social networking sites. I am not saying that Facebook should be elitist, far from it, but there are certain boundaries that restrict the usefulness and usability of MySpace and Facebook that allows them to be where they are today.

In general as many teachers have said before: KISS (keep it simple stupid).

MySpace has always allowed for users to add their own pictures, music, videos, and anything other code that their users could cut and paste from others' sites and embed into their own. Although this grants much freedom of expression, autonomy and creativity, it also creates pages where users have to scroll over four pages because the user did not know how to scale his image correctly and white font on yellow backgrounds.

Although user generated content is great and adding new applications to Facebook was a cool and fun new thing to experiment with, the unnecessary cluttering of what was once a clean and minimalistic approach is more a detriment than a benefit. I do not need to know who your "Top Friends", "Where You've Been", your "Political Compass", "Who Sent you a Drink" and "What Level Ninja or Pirate" you are because to be honest, it shouldn't matter. Is it necessary to start the Myspacification of Facebook just because in order to be "innovative" you must continue to add stuff to your site? I just really hope Facebook remembers that it is a social networking site, and should remain so.

That is all
-y