The blogosphere is trying to figure out Myspace. Two new posts today caught my eye discussing the subject.
First, Greg Yardley tells an anecdote of his subway ride with teen girls talking about Myspace and how common it seemed to them. I can share Greg’s experience since a couple of days ago I was in a public library and when I walked through the young adult section all four available computers were filled with teenagers playing on Myspace, and none of them appeared to know each other or be friends. It struck me that I’ve never seen such ubiquitous use of one site when I’ve walked by a set of computers before in a public place, and I was also glad my tax dollars were allowing teens to do some important social networking.
The next post is from Jim Kurkal at Revenews. He predicts Myspace will fail within 3 years or less. Three years is a lot in internet time, so he’s definitely allowing for enough time for social networking to run it’s course or have a competitor take the lead. It’d be a gutsier prediction if it was a year or two, but still a bit of a gutsy prediction. Is he right? Well, it’s impossible to know, but I do disagree with some of his points.
1. Janet’s boob, part II.
Jim says something bad will happen on Myspace like a murder of a teen or sexual assault. If I’m not mistaken, this has already happened. I wouldn’t be surprised if Myspace did have to tighten the membership requirements in some way as he suggests. Will this kill it or take the fun out of it? I don’t really think it will. People will jump through hoops to use something they want to use.
2. Everyone grows up eventually.
True, but won’t younger teens also get older? I’m sure the current Myspace generation may move on to more business-oriented sites like Jim mentions, but there are also new teenagers every day. Perhaps there will be a better social networking site by then, tough to know for sure. Of course, Google Search was the hot thing with the cool geeks years ago and people were predicting that a new search engine would come along and take over. Or that the new generation of the web would use something else. Well, people are still using Google. I think one thing people aren’t considering is what if Myspace improves? Nobody seems to think that they could actually change/improve their service, or offer more useful features.
3. It’s lame. Sorry, but it is boring and lame. I’m 34-years-old, and I think Myspace is lame.
Well, that’s good. Jim isn’t really Myspace’s target audience. Obviously there are millions of users who don’t think it’s lame. So, I’m not really sure people older than it’s audience thinking it’s lame is a reason it will fail. My dad thinks eBay is too confusing, but I think eBay is doing just fine without him.
4. Better options will become available.
This could definitely happen. But not only does it have to be better, it has to get the userbase to make it useful. I’d argue there are already BETTER options. They just don’t have the momentum and audience, and when it comes to social networking, you have to be where your friends are.
5. The narcs will move in.
They are and it will continue. But for the majority of users, I’m not sure this matters. I’m sure it will cause headaches for the Myspace team, but unless it causes them to dramatically change the way the service works, it might not be a problem.
In summary, I don’t think Jim is necessarily wrong in his prediction. There are a lot of things that could happen that would cause Myspace to fail, but by no means do I think it’s a sure thing.
What is the defination of failure? Just because Myspace isn’t the #1 social networking site 3 years from now doesn’t mean its a failure.
Here is my personal opinion on it. I’ve been an active internet user for over a decade. Early on I wondered what would happen, for example, to online role playing games when a newer and better game came out. Do people leave in droves? Unless there is a massive screw up, no.
Ultima Online was the first true MMORPG. Its still around and making its owners money. Today the MMORPG market is jammed packed. Entertainment and game companies are pouring millions of dollars in hopes to be the next big thing, yet most of the original games are still going. A few have died, but these were games that never had much momentum or users in the first place.
The most recent Vanity Fair has an excellent article on Myspace (its the issue with two naked actresses on the cover, you can’t miss it.)
I think most of these nay-sayers are just mad that they haven’t built an ultra-successful company within a period of a few short years. These are the same type of people who still complain when someone mentions the name of Mark Cuban.
Myspace was succssful because it allowed teens and kids to communicate in a very loose way and express themselves in a very unrestricted way. This was the main factor that brought in the early adaptors.
Then it was successful because its viral to the point that teens could not afford socially not to be there.
Pretty soon it will reach saturation. Where the number of people abandoning the service will be equal to the number of people entering it. The question is, weather there will be a strong enough factor that an alternative service can use to pull users out of Myspace.
It seems that the only option for competitive services will to capture niches and be better than MySpace in these niches. For example, local social network which already includes the kids you know (perhaps run be the school) Another example could be Themed myspaces.Kids who are fans of specific tv show will get their myspace with benefits and treats related to the show.
In all these cases, it seems likely that MySpace will remain the default social network. Just as people use Cell and landline. Or more than one email account.
Additionaly, Myspace is actively pursuing other platforms to run on like the newHelio Myspace mobile phone. They have a leverage of size and influence that allows them to run such projects which competitors can’t afford. These are high entry barriers.
My conclusion, based on the above is that Myspace is here for years to come. The only thing which will probably happen is that they will be bought from Newscorp by a company which has focus on kids and knows better how to leverage it’s audience.
Nir Ben-Dor, CoMagz
Good points by everyone. I think there will be a growth of smaller vertical social networks that could steal some interest from Myspace, but Myspace does have the opportunity to be a power if they do things right.
While I totally agree with the opinion that MySpace is a MISERABLE user experience, I’m afraid to dismiss it as silly, awful, kid stuff, or a soon-to-be failure. That is the same thing that my former boss and my mom said about blogs 3 or 4 years ago when I was getting into them. Of course, blogs were not exactly what they are today from a user experience perspective either. I think we’ll see MySpace evolve with its user base (if it’s smart – and it is – thanks Rupert). The bottom line is they’ve passed the first major challenge of creating an internet powerhouse…building massive traffic. Say what you will about the quality of said traffic, they now have the foundation upon which to build a better and longer lasting business model.
Mypsace wont fade out. It’s where everybodys friends are and hell its more addicting then drugs. They keep the clever ideas comming and even made a record company
Bottom line: if you have a lot of friends on MySpace, it is a great place that you will enjoy being.
If not, you’ll write an article like Greg’s.
I have a lot of real-life friends and there are usually 10 or more bulletins posted by people in my friends ‘network’ on MySpace each day. Most of my friends (outside of my coworkers) don’t have web sites or blogs outside of myspace, so MySpace acts as my aggregator for those friends. Many of my friends are in bands. MySpace gives them a free event calendar (so all my friends’ bands’ bulletins and events are aggregated for me) and lets them host a few songs there for free. Brilliant!