All this attention on Facebook must be getting under MySpace’s skin.
Despite posting good growth, the company is being treated as a carton of milk left in the open overnight. While Facebook is a rocket whose upward trajectory cannot be denied, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of MySpace’s death are highly exaggerated. To counter the perceptions, MySpace is going to launch a PR offensive tomorrow, touting its recent growth. (Read our previous post for the comparisons between two behemoths.)
The MySpace press release quotes a study by Forrester that shows that “nearly 80% of 12-17 year olds use MySpace at least weekly which is three times more than any other social network.” There are a lot of stats in the release, and while MySpace doesn’t use Facebook anywhere in the release, it is clear that they are the “closet competitor in the social networking category.” One interesting bit in the release: seriously strong international growth. MySpace UK, for example has over 10 million active users.
So why all the PR action? Two reasons: MySpace like any other social network cannot be perceived as being uncool. Like night clubs, an unhip social networks might as well shut down. Second reason, I believe is mostly to remind the developers that MySpace is still a good platform to write widgets for. As I said at the end of my previous post, this is a great derby to watch, and occasionally pontificate about.
PS: I promise, for rest of the week we are going to skip writing about Facebook and MySpace. Unless, someone decides to pay a gazillion dollars for Facebook.
I think most developers know by now that Myspace has been completely overrun by spammers. I was recently reading a forum frequented by spammers and they are selling things like Myspace auto-profile creators, auto adders, auto everything.
I’d be willing to bet that over half of the supposed new members are just fake profiles meant to sell something.
Hell, I’d be willing to double that bet on the fact that half of all their profiles are fake.
But, again, I think the developers know this. The purity of the Facebook audience is much more attractive than Myspace’s spam and clutter even if they have less than half of the audience.
I think advertisers know this also. If they don’t then they need to fire whoever is in their marketing department.
As a user of MySpace UK there is definitely life left in the old dog yet.
Recent changes have noticeably affected spammers and reduced the number of request I have to delete which has been a great relief.
I also use facebook too.
The two are very different. MySpace users are generally very open to accepting friends. Facebook users are more like High School cliques.
Maybe that will change with the recent influx of users due to all the hype, but the MySpace users I know don’t like Facebook so you may end up with a divide based on social attitude. One group drinks at the pub the other at the cocktail bar.
Hi…wrote two blog posts today (12th July) on two aspects of this issue:
(i) The Nielsen data showing huge commonality of users on all SocNets.
(ii) The emerging evidence that Facebook is worse at distributing Ad love than MySpace.
MySpace is far from done. There are simply too many salient uses for its platform, and trends of use, especially among the young, can change in a heartbeat.
http://mikeelliottsblog.wordpress.com
MySpace has brought the hammer down on spammers. There is now “report as spam” buttons in mail and friend requests. They require captchas in new places. The ubiquitous Tom has posted blogs and announcements about their efforts. I haven’t been spammed in a month. I continue to get spammed on Facebook, however.
Who cares about developers? MySpace is gunning for ad dollars and doesn’t want other social networks to steal a slice of their pie.
MySpace is taking a turn for the worse.
We run http://www.mrdoe.com/ – a website that provides layouts and graphics for users of MySpace. We’ve spent countless hours creating layouts and found out two days ago MySpace is filtering our URL. Whenever you post a link on MySpace now pointing to “mrdoe.com” it redirects to “myspace.com”. We’ve never ONCE spammed or abused their service, and over 10,000 visitors come to our site everyday.
Emails to MySpace go unanswered and it seems as if no one there listens. The way they treat people who provide a service for them and increase their popularity is amazing. If there’s anyone from MySpace who reads this and can help, feel free to email me at YVfVkfT2af0nBefs@spambox.us (spam protection – redirects to my personal email).