Long before Facebook came into existence, I was an active user on Myspace. With my first friend Tom Anderson, I was well on my way to finding friends and networking in the digital age. One unique feature that Myspace allows is the ability to completely customize your profile page. From picking out a background to adding pictures and animations, every person’s page is completely unique unto itself. Profiles range from the basic plain schematic to the overwhelming dizziness of a page with more pictures and graphics than words. Many third party sites exist to provide free html codes for these graphics, which a user then copies and pastes into their profile. Another important social feature is the ability to pick your “top friends” who are displayed on your profile page. Commonly understood, the first “top friend” is the person most important to you, and thus down the line. Needless to say, this causes much ado when a certain friend gets bumped.
When Facebook appeared on the scene, it was a refreshing new take on social media. There is no “ranking” of the friends, and more of my time is focused on interacting with others rather than updating my profile page. Facebook has quickly evolved into its own unique brand of social media. From streaming status updates to fan pages and groups, Facebook has created a social network with a completely different look and feel than Myspace. So this brings me to my question: Why won’t Facebook go the way of Myspace?
One negative feature of Myspace is how the site gets bogged down with all the graphic information users have on their profile pages. With so many html codes that need to load every time I click on a person’s page, it takes forever to view someone’s profile. Not only the amount of time it takes to view a friend’s page, but also the amount of time spent looking for different graphics can be time consuming. I know I would spend hours looking for different graphics to add to my profile. Often times, friends would go months without giving any updates to their page solely because it took so long to change out information. Don’t get me wrong, the act of changing out the layout didn’t take long at all; it was the searching for the perfect layout that took forever. However, this customization feature is one of the unique qualities of Myspace that many users enjoy.
Myspace is the social network that many local bands use to get word out about themselves and their upcoming shows. The customization feature of Myspace really allows for the bands to brand themselves over a social network. Facebook allows for people to create common interest groups, but the customization is limited.
I can talk about the differences between Myspace and Facebook all day, but to sum it up: Facebook won’t go the way of Myspace because it is a completely different brand. It would be like asking why Apple doesn’t go the way of Microsoft. Plus, if it isn’t broke, why fix it?