Anyway, I created an account a few years ago, and within the last year I've been letting my account awkwardly hang out by the punch bowl while I make out in a corner with Facebook. Today I logged in for the first time in eons, and I was so frustrated with the experience that I felt the need to share it with my other MySpace-haterz. So, in no particular order, here are things that I hate about MySpace:
- It takes eons to load anything. What the crap? I have a cable modem, and it feels like I'm back in 1999 trying to download an Our Lady Peace song on a dialup connection. Why the heck does it take forever to load anything on MySpace? I was trying to load a user's image, for crying out loud, and it went something like this:
- Click on "Album"
- Click on first photo
- Wait
- Refresh
- Wait
- First photo loads
- Click on photo to see second photo
- Wait
- Wait
- Wait
- Click "Refresh" eighteen times
- Blank page loads
- Raise fists towards the heavens and curse the visual STD that is MySpace
- Every 3rd click brings up some "internal error." It's ridiculous.
- Photo albums don't give you a "Image 1 of x" status, so I click aimlessly through someone's album until I realize that I've rounded the bend and am 1/3 through it again.
- I don't receive any more emails notifying me when I have a new friend request, new comment, or new anything. I understand that it's a ploy to get you to log in regularly to see if you've gotten anything new, but I don't do that because I largely hate the site, so unless I get some sort of heads up ("Hey Rebecca, we know you hate our site, but your friend just posted a comment so maybe you want to take a looksee"), I'll continue to only log in once every few months to spy on folks I went to high school with (which is the only semi-useful thing MySpace is good for).
- It's made a half-ass attempt to emulate Facebook while still looking as ugly as Michael Douglas between facelifts. I've noticed that MySpace has added "Friend Updates" and the ability to tag people in photos, but it feels slapped together and is still wedged between blinking ads, AdSense, crappy featured profiles, and other nausea-inducing atrocities.
- I'm in my extended network? If I look at my profile page, it says "rebecca is in your extended network." Uh, yeah, I know that because I'm Rebecca, and that profile you're showing me is actually mine. Meanwhile, Facebook is smart enough to know when you're looking at your own profile, and thus it personalizes your profile page with things like "What are you doing right now?", "View photos of me," etc.
- All of the junk I don't care about is front and center on my profile page. To the left is my profile picture, and to the right is a huge ad, "Cool new videos," a "Featured Profile," and "MySpace Links" I don't give a rat's ass about. There's also "Sponsored Links" and a "Featured on Myspace: Comedy," all on my page. This kind of feels like MySpace's page that they're graciously allowing me to use a teeny part of. I will acknowledge that I use the "classic" view (the "new home skin" isn't much better--it looks like a cheap Facebook knockoff and shoves all of the ads and crap to the left column) because I don't give a damn about customizing my profile, seeing as how all of the "customized" profiles adrift in the MySpace Sea are akin to loud, obnoxious, fuschia colored, blinking Christmas light-adorned party cruises, while mine is a boring but smooth-sailing and sturdy rowboat.
- The "New birthdays!" notification basically shows me any and all birthdays, past, present, and future, within a half-month radius. Today it showed me Scott's birthday, which was about 10 days ago, CK Chung's birthday, which was December 12, and my friend Kevin's birthday, which was December 11. It wouldn't surprise me if my friends are getting a "New birthday!" notification informing them that mine is just around the corner on August 6th.
Oh, and I'm sorry for ranting, but someone emailed me a while back and complained to me that 1/10 of my posts are of a negative or complaining nature, and I thought "Hmm, that's only 10%. Surely I can keep that going." So, in order to meet my internal quota, here's the negative post. ;) Happy Friday, everyone!
Tom Anderson (as in whiteshirt wearing myspace Tom) was recently featured on a Barbara Walters special as one of the The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2007. It blew my mind. I despise Tom for creating a internet sensation and failing to respect its users enough to innovate. I honestly think he has set the internet back at least two years...
In other news:
If anyone is interested Rand has posted on this previously.https://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-simple-explanation-for-why-myspace-is-so-successfulAlso if you have never read the Forbes article comparing Facebook and Myspace I highly recommend it.https://www.forbes.com/2007/07/20/facebook-myspace-internet-tech-cz_ccm_0723class.html
great advice, you get a handy dandy thumb! heh.
well as for MY opinion of myspace... I made that a matter of public record when I put a DIV overlay to completely cover my profile and replace it with a message of hate. It basically read something like:
"!@#$ Myspace!
Myspace is a steaming pile of javascript security wholes and turns you all into people you are not. [Blah Blah blah- juicy rant], do not comment my profile, do not add me to your collection of thumbnail friends, do not pass go, and if you need to reach me, please e-mail me"
followed by my e-mail address.
And NOBODY e-mailed me. I heard from several of my friends: "you're so hard to get ahold of, I can't comment you!" To which I responded with not really talking to those people
The AOL analogy is spot-on though. I know like a hundred people who still pay for AOL even though they have some form of broadband. I tell them about firefox and show them AOL.com and they STILL won't listen.
APES! Troglodytes!
Apes don't live in caves, but yes - I entirely agree.
Somewhere along the line people got the idea that, whilst most of them do agree that MySpace is essentially useless, 'Well, you've got to, haven't you?'.
Sadly this is a difficult mentality to circumnavigate and social networks generally rely on loyalty.
The respect issue is a good one; however, I dare say many Myspace users don't even realise the quality (or lack thereof) of the site they're using. If the Internet is comprised of Myspace, Hotmail and Yahoo! chat rooms, you're unlikely to notice how nasty Myspace really is.
Here's what Tom's creation reminds me of: you call a company's telephone number. You're met with an automated telephone system. You try everything. You follow the rabbit down every rabbit hole and yet you end up back at automated messages you've already heard. You press "0", "1" or "9" (i.e. Refresh, Go and Back) over and over again and yet you're not taken to an operator.
No one is listening; no one cares. No one cares that the system is crap and that you - the user / visitor / customer - will never find what you're looking for. People who have no idea that there are better systems out there put up with it. You know there are companies who do things better.
Thus, you change companies. You join Facebook.
Excellent analogy Jane. But I would go a step further - ever tried using a company that uses voice recognition? OMG what a pile of C.R.A.P! I changed my BANK after they introduced it. Imagine trying to yell your name and other details properly when out and about for everyone to hear!!!
To me, thats how bad myspace is.
When your customer service can be described as "kafkaesque", you're not doing well!
MySpace is awful, yes. But it is still popular for two reasons:
1/ [mentioned by Jane] it was among the first;
2/ it is a most easy-to-use marketing tool in some niches. It has become an interesting symbiosis of 'marketers' [if we can call them that] who spam and surfers who don't mind being spammed. Where else can you find such a plenty of possibilities to spam people? And where else can you find so many people who eagerly add everyone to friends and read each pm and comment clicking on ads? I remember years ago, Myspace was the first place where I got my first subscribers :) [although my blog was actually crap]. I don't use MySpace for a long time now but things seem to remain pretty the same.
From this perspective its main drawback becomes its main advantage - the absense of privacy - which still [suprisingly] attracts plenty of people - because they have the freedom they can't nowadays find anywhere else.
Both good points, but let's not forget that it's still a great way of sharing music. Anyone here have a band? No? Maybe that's the point...
I have the perfect line of css to set all MySpace's problems out:
html *{ display:none;}
That ought to be a mandatory part of all MySpace pages.
Harry, I think Admin may have to delete your comment because when Google reads it, it will deindex this page..:)
html *{ display:none;} hidden text violation of GQG.
Myspace is like AOL where for many years and for many millions of users there was no such thing as the internet, there was only a thing called AOL.
These were the people who if confronted with a new computer, look at it and if they didn't see an AOL icon they would think the computer sucked cause it didn't come with a internet.
Speaking of Myspace however:
This is a shot in the dark, but, if there is anyone out there good at making Myspace themes I have a project I need you for :) a fun one full of giggles and goodness
Wow - just messing around and discovered that this post ranks about 4th from over 2.5 million results for "I hate Myspace" - what a result! (and no - I dont know what the potential ROI on that would be.)
Blimey!
There are 14 internal links, right there.
*disclaimer: this comment is purely for entertainment purposes - no replies explaining nofollow or distribution of PageRank or LinkJuice are required ;¬)
I assume you gave me all those thumbs downs and the final thumbs up? lol - fair enough - balances them out - unless some one else gives me more! ;-(
Have no clue what happened there - its like the post kept submitting with every couple of letters I typed!!!!!
lol balanced indeed, can be frustrating when the button gets stuck!
All moderated away now ;)
yeah! I dont like getting thumbed down lol.
I know I'm late to the Myspace hate, but I have to say it - I hate myspace with a passion of a thousand suns. The spam is horrific, the interface is as confusing as the weird social tension that Jack seems to go in and out of in different episodes of Three's Company, and I hate going to someone's profile and unexpectedly having someone's "Timbaland" profile song blast through my iMac speakers making me drop my Cup O Noodles onto the desk.
I don't like Myspace...
Me too......
Spam is horrible. I keep getting invitation emails from nude girls ...
YES and if you report them - nothing happens!!!
i still use myspace to keep in touch with friends who have probably never heard of facebook. i haven't really updated anything on there in months. i rarely use facebook either. something about it i just don't get. maybe i'm just burnt out on social networking sites in general.
rebecca, regarding #6 i think you're seeing your status message on you profile there. since they added the status thing it shows up in the top right corner of your profile. if you don't update your status, the default is "is in your extended network". change your status message to "hates myspace" and your profile will say "rebecca hates myspace" instead.
[thanks, Richard Manley for the proof reading :)]
Ooh, that's not a bad status update. Thanks, kimber! :)
MySpace and Facebook are aimed at very different demographics.
Although primarily designed to allow musicians to place their wares online easily, in reality MySpace fills the void left when the internet moved on from the home-pages and GeoCities of the nineties. Facebook is allowing users to keep in contact in an easily managable manner.
For myself, I have an email address and a telephone and really fail to grasp the appeal of a 'funwall' which is not fun, is not a wal and only serves to, as with MySpace, allow others to watch one side of a conversation.
There is a huge market out there and it is important to identify it and optimise for it, but as a tool for anything other than time wasting, neither adds a whole lot of value to the Web, nor indeed to the internet as a whole.
We'd be daft not to tap the resource though, eh?
I agree with you both MySpace and FaceBook are a waste of time and unproductive!
I parcipate a lot in Industry forums and blogs, some places respect me a lot some place not so much, but it is never a one away conversation!
Even I get banned from some place, but life goes on!
To me a ban is a Red Badge of Courage!
I rather be banned from a place for saying what I believe in, than go to a palce and say nothing at all.
I was playing around with MySpace this past week for the first time (yeah, I know, welcome to the 21st Century), and I agree with everything you said Rebecca. Someone at MySpace needs to take a course in usability. It took me three hours to finally figure out how to personalize it. Facebook, on the other hand, was a breeze. Sure, I can't turn my Facebook profile into a hot pink background with purple lettering, but still, it has an intelligent design, and it doesn't take forever to load.
yeah I was hankering after a hot pink background too... lol
*shiver* god forbid!
And what's with "cool new people"? The same three dorks keep popping up every time I visit MySpace, even if it's been weeks since my last visit!
You forgot to mention the terrible customer service, probably because you didn't try to contact them.
And yet somehow it's still a wildly popular site. I don't understand why but I think it would be a good thing to find out as it might tell us more about the typical web user.
Like studying apes!
The truth is though that the naive web users are the largest target audience for any campaign. Technically astute users are more likely to have banner blindness (be that provided by software or merely experience), more likely to search deeper through SERPs and less likely to make impulse purchases or provide easy conversions.
The chances of the fart button being clicked must be directly proportionate to the frequency with which the user types 'lol' and, at the end of the day, that is the target demographic for MySpace.
Whilst they are leaking users quite severely now, I doubt that any improvement in features or functionality would have as large an effect as some decent marketing.
There are a lot of loyal MySpace users who would see any UI change as something to fear and they are staying where they are because they know users there and they are comfortable with the interface.
A change might well be enough of an intrusion into that comfort zone to justify a move to FaceBook?
rbcarter, I tried contacting customer service, and all I got was regurgitation of the same same!
My last experience with their customer service involved a very long form reply to something only vaguely related to my original query. At that point I figured it's not worth it.
I have about as much faith in their customer service as I do in the Post Office.
rbcarter, after a brief exchange with their customer services I hung up the line on them forever..:)
I think I must be getting older because I'm starting to feel this way about more and more websites. Also on the sharp end of this loathing is l33t, BAD SPELIN ALL IN CAPS, names like Cheyenne-Tayla-Jo and council estate facelifts.
It stems from a deep desire to make the world a better place.
I have actually signed up to Facebook to keep in contact with my friend in Afghanistan - it's a much more calming atmosphere (Facebook I mean, not Afghan).
You may need your RPG on FB soon, to ward of the terrorists..:)
I never really got MySpace but I did create an account a while ago. Within minutes I was being hammered with spam. Recently I made a decision to try to understand and find how to do something useful with it. So far all it has gotten me is frustration.
Yeah, I'm a little late to this party (blame it on the holidays) but thought I'd add my two cents.
I have a MySpace account that is quite active. I only have 51 'friends' on there and most of them are of a demographic that allows me to be crazy, stupid, and fun. Facebook, on the other hand, forces me to be more professional. I have contacts on Facebook that I'd be embarrased to show my MySpace to, frankly. My MySpace profile pic is offensive, my default profile song is offensive, and the comments and captions on my pics are not even remotely professional. Unlike big names like, Vanessa Fox, I still am not able to merge my Schizo personalities online into one pretty picture for all the world to see equally. So, MySpace allows me to be childish, fill out stupid surveys (that I secretly enjoy), post videos of me going 160MPH in my 2005 Dodge Viper (which I no longer have), and happily post pics of me doing other stupid things.
MySpace has its purpose and so does Facebook. Feel free to look me up on Facebook (search for Brent David Payne) and I'll add you as a friend but for MySpace . . . that's still my secret dungeon reserved for the child still inside of me, which I feel is inside of everyone.
Brent David Payne
I am with BDP on this.
In 1994 I was on AOL. I needed a dial-up connection. I used Netscape for browsing. One night, I stumbled into a chatroom of local people and for about 4 years I was a regular fixture. To this day some of my best friends are people I originally met on AOL or at AOL related gatherings. I still use AOL for e-mail, Xdrive, IM, etc. - but I don't pay for it.
A few years back some of the people I met on AOL migrated over to MySpace and for week-to-week "whats going on with your life" - that remains our main form of contact. Even though a lot of us have Facebook/Linkedin/Friendster accounts.
MySpace allows us to kind of cut loose and talk about silly shit. In terms of longevity - my blog on MySpace is one of the longest lasting blogs I have.
On MySpace I don't feel embarrassed to post about my crush on the new Bionic Woman, or how I secretly envy the guy that gets to sit in the cubicle across from the office-hottie. I can shamelessly give my take on recent episodes of House or Smallville, making sure to elaborate on any observations I have of the female actresses. I even did a week to week wrap-up of Amazing Race All Stars all the while rooting for Rob and Amber. Its a shame really, all that good content going to waste.
In some ways MySpace is the answer to those of us that aren't funny enough to be featured on Drivl.
I'm not here to defend MySpace, just like I wouldn't try to defend AOL. But for some people - and some activities - MySpace is just fine. Even if some people's pages do make your eyes bleed.
My biggest gripe with Facebook: To my knowledge, you can't stalk people. If you want to see anything that is going on with someone, you have to be their friend first. Which means they'll know you're looking at them - which kind of violates the whole purpose of Internet stalking. :-)
I agree with the stalking, and I mentioned exactly that in my post, how MySpace is good for spying on people you know but haven't talked to in ages. :D
Hey Rebecca,
Your point is so well taken. I'm a member of myspace now for 5 years and I must have 300 SPAM friend requests and messages sitting in my inbox.
It has driven me so nuts - it caused me to start up my own myspace website where this crap doesn't happen. No spam , no phishing, no CAPTCHA, no hacking, no pervs, no jerks.
It's called www.comechill.com and I certainly recommend to anybody who is tired of SPAM and the other associated plagues of social networking to at least drop by to take a look.
To be honest - I dont care whether my professional persona or my out going mad as a hatter image are visible to everyone in the same place. in todays world of lack of real privacy - you can find information anywhere - my pics may jump out at flickr or soemwhere else, its only a matter of time - as long as I am not doing anything shameful or illegal - it all stays in one place - its me all the way, take it or leave it.
I wouldnt work with anyone who would not accept the nutty side of me -and appreciate the fact that what I do in my own time, is my business, and not for them to pass judgement on my professional ethics. It would be a pain to work with people like that.
Hi Brent - i keep facebook for the fun stuff and use LinkedIn for my professional stuff. I like the recommendations thing too. That said, there's a growing SEO group on facebook, but maybe we should keep the serious stuff on LinkedIn and the after party on Facebook?
Is that why I didn't get a present from you, yet? :)
Haha, I've decided to round the bend.
It's like a brand new can of spam ready for you to aimlessly fish through every single time you log in. I deleted my profile a while ago, citing spam, useless UI, bugs and automated comments as my main resons for leaving. Guess what - i can still log in to my profile and it still exists! Even their profile removal / account closure process is broken! If you want to listen to some new music from time to time, you can do that without being registered anyways. Gosh!
I totally agree about myspace's complete lack of usability and technical capability. When it launched it was ok to have the occasional errors - afterall it was new technology. Now? I expect better. As with the general usability and quality of the site - instead i logon and find it dull, stale, uninspiring, underused and abandoned.
Still I find that the clean interface of facebook attracts far more people who want a simple page and ease of use (old school friends, colleagues, etc) plus privacy controls and relative lack of spam and advertising.
Even so, everytime I see SuperWall and FunWall I do shudder at the myspace comments box flashback... letting people post random images/videos to your profile page is a PR nightmare......
@ LindPop - actually most of the US forces & UK forces are kinda banned from blogging/social media sites (OpSec) - so few of my friends 'out there' make use of secret groups of invited friends & family and find it much easier and more fun than old 'chain mail' emails. And thats a feature really much easier on FB.
@robbothan - the advantage of superwall and funwall is you can delete the spammy articles (as with anything on FB - dunno and dont care about mywastespace) - only real problem is one of logistics - if you have friends who love to spam, its a clean up nightmare.
true, but i dont want to waste time mainting the 'purity' of my page cleaning up after one of my friends who cant be bothered to be accurate and sprays spam everywhere.
somehow that doesnt sound right lol....
still thats why i dont install them, and dislike them on others pages when i might view them at work and then have to scroll past 6 different copies of n@ked grannies etc....
I would be so surprised if this post would start rating for n@ked grannies! lol
I hate myspace as well and the biggest complaint I have, besides the fact that it feels like junior high school all over again-ugh- is that it has to be the slowest website on the planet. Your post is spot on. Let's hope you can figure out a way to get that 10% higher in the future.
Myspace is one of the top 10 most visited sites in the world. They must be doing something right.
Seanmeg, so is 42nd street, but does that mean you want to go there..)
as a matter of fact...
You must be hanging out on my travel forum, one time too many..:)
I believe part of their success is due to having got into the social networking game early. Think of airlines. British Airways are known for losing baggage if you go through more than one connection and yet we still fly with them. Why? Because they're established.
If MySpace started today and did everything they do today, they'd fail. They're also catering to an audience who largely don't use other websites very often and may well not know what else is "out there. The same thing applies to the people who still use IE6. It's not that there aren't better options out there; they just don't about them and aren't really concerned about finding out.
I think the first to market argument could be made about many online businesses. For example, it would be almost impossible to replicate an Ebay or an Amazon at this point.
Even though MySpace certainly has issues, as do most community sites, they still have a pretty rabid base of users that spend a great deal of time on the site, which leads me to believe that not "most everyone" hates MySpace.
That said, I know this post was just a rant and not to be fully taken literally. What I think would be a really interesting post is what you would do with the critical mass that MySpace has built to reverse their declining numbers.
I think Google could replicate an Amazon or eBay. Will they? Not according to anyone I know over there (which is becoming fewer and fewer as their stock options vest). The offline stores could take a serious junk out of Amazon as well. Amazon could take a junk out of eBay if they'd just put a real effort behind it (no, not their effort of a few years ago on auctions).
Brent D. Payne
I don't believe that Google could challenge Amazon or eBay in the short to medium term, purely because of their existing user base.
The only model they would have to compete with Amazon would be to be returned before them in search results. With the current loyalty which Amazon enjoys and the huge number of back-links out there, I cannot see this happening without adjusting SERPs and I do not foresee Google interfering with their core business in this manner.
If they were going to follow this model then I would have expected to see it happen with Froogle back in 2002.
Technologically, I have no doubt that Google could match Amazon's (frankly excellent) recommendations model, particularly with their bigger data haul, and certainly they would struggle to do worse on the coding front (take a look at some Amazon headers sometime) but the user loyalty which Amazon or eBay have is going to be tough to break.
And why do BA have this problem? Because they are the biggest carrier at the world's busiest airport (Heathrow) which was built back in the 19th Century sometime.
In many ways I think that this makes your BA comparisson with MySpace even better. When they started they had everything that their users wanted. Since then they've been desperately trying to monetise all the traffic, at the same time as keep up with every new networking site that comes along.
At some point maybe they just need to take a breath?
You're also very right that we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that everyone thinks like we do.
It is the #1 most popular industry wide search term according to the data I am looking at now and, although I should admit that it is October's data as I am at home, trends suggest that it is likely to still be in that top spot today.
yeah... getting kids on board! lol. Nope seriously - there are people who have had excellent ROI on myspace...It does do well for the Music industry as well.
But as functionality goes, well Rebecca is spot on. Its a dinosaur. Its as easy to use as geocities was...
And I thought I was the only one who felt this way... Haha Long Live Facebook!
Facebook spam filters are much better. Myspace can take few lessons from them
Hello Rebecca,
In the last days of this year, where business is easy because most of the working class is taking his/her days of between chrismas and new year, I decided to dive into social networking.
I just made a profile on facebook and had the intention also to make a profile on MySpace....
But if I read between the lines of your story, are you telling me not to subscribe to MySpace ? :)
MySpace = Proof ColdFusion is crap and cannot be run for large enviroment websites.
Time to change to Perl/Ruby/Java.....whatever
Even a solid php backbone would have done the site a lot better then the current setup.
Haha. I've kept my status 'I hate myspace' and 'Myspace takes too long to load'. We all now see why Myspace is getting it's tail kicked by Facebook....Crappy UI, to name a little.
Myspace is better than Facebook. Facebook may be faster and more advanced, but the company misuses it's power and terminate people's account as and when they wish! If you ask me, i rather have a slower myspace account then have one faster FB one and get terminated.
And this is what just happened to me, my FB acc got disable for absolutely no reason, they thought i was spamming, but i wasn't.
With Myspace comes more freedom, with freedom come much spam and ads from desperate users trying to gain a foothole in their ricebowl, nothing is perfect!
Myspace need to speed up their servers and improve their features. But they shouldn't follow the EVIL facebook methods of terminating people's accounts, limiting their friend numbers and groups they join, Facebook is an EVIL company, Myspace is just kinda SLOW!
So ourMySpace account was suspiciously deleted - with no reason for it. MySpace gave me a generic list of reasons of why it could've been deleted and rudely said to click "reply" if I had further questions. I did, it's been a week and still no response. Figured I probably got deleted because I posted a bulletin about a free contest. Ok, that's fine. But then I decide, if my account is going to get deleted then prostitutes should be deleted since they break way more rules than me. So I proceed to report all the prostitutes I can find. You know, the girls who post half naked pictures and have links to their adult sites? Yeah, them. In fact when I reported them I even posted MySpace's rules in the reason as to why I was reporting them. The rules I posted:
8.3 exploits people in a sexual or violent manner;
8.4 contains nudity, excessive violence, or offensive subject matter or contains a link to an adult website;
8.15 for band, comedy, filmmaker and other profiles, uses sexually suggestive imagery or any other unfair, misleading or deceptive Content intended to draw traffic to the profile;
8.21 covering or obscuring the banner advertisements on your personal profile page, or any MySpace page via HTML/CSS or any other means; (in many cases they covered the "report abuse" text at the bottom)
8.29 displaying an unauthorized commercial advertisement on your profile, or accepting payment or anything of value from a third person in exchange for your performing any commercial activity through the unauthorized or impermissible use of the MySpace Services on behalf of that person, such as placing commercial content on your profile, posting blogs or bulletins with a commercial purpose, selecting a profile with a commercial purpose as one of your "Top 8" friends, or sending private messages with a commercial purpose
So why should Tom get rich just because of meaningless rules and making exceptions to half naked girls? Because they're the ones bringing all the traffic to MySpace. Without them MySpace would be nothing. There's nothing special about MySpace. I'm forced to believe that it's just a typical sex-luring human trafficking system. If you don't believe me - try it yourself. Look up your favorite porn star on myspace and report abuse on their profile. I can guarantee you'll get an email back from MySpace stating they have found no terms of violation.
MySpace? What is this "MySpace" thing you speak of?
Yea, never heard of it either. Also, someone else was telling me about this site where you can buy things in an online auction format, called Ebay or something. And another site still with free classifieds called Craigslist. I may have to check those out someday, but I'm waiting to see if this whole internet thing isn't just another fad.
On that tangent, isn't it funny how some of the most visited sites in the world are also the worst? Seriously, I think I built a site like Craigslist back in 1995. And Ebay, a Web 2.0 site at it's truest definition, has been roughly the same since about 1995 before most Web 1.0 sites started. Don't even get me started on the whole Web 2.0 misnomer.
A basic, text based site generally converts better than one with too many bells and whistles.
Looking at the big names, Google, eBay, Craigslist (incidentally, Craigslist is a much, much less dominant site in the UK), Live, YouTube, BBC, Wikipedia et al, they all have a lot of content, minimal clutter, a strong logo and limited branding beyond that.
It is easy to get distracted by what users think they like and lose track of what actually provides a good CTR. According to my personal tests, as well as the likes of Gerry McGovern or Jakob Nielsen, it would appear that a plain blue underlined text link wins every time.
Ya, the birthday notifications are retarded. It'll show you once, like 10 days before, then not again. I've missed birthdays cuz it doesn't give you like a day before reminder.
It is spam heaven, I don't see why anyone goes there anymore!
Agreed with dojeda. spam on myspace is ridiculous...Everytime I login to my account (maaaybe once a week, if that) I get hit with like 5 messages at once. The only reason I am still on there is because of old high school friends that don't have facebook.
Is there an adult "myspace" that's any good?
Is there an open source "myspace" anyone has started?
By "myspace" I mean a social networking site...
I am not sure what you mean by "adult" for adults, or adult in nature (i.e porn etc) ? If the former then Facebook is pretty much adults - I think the min age to join used to be 21 or something? The later - I have no clue ;-) although I hear hi5 can get pretty vulgar pockets of users.
As for open source - there are loads - but again - not sure what you meant - as an application? If so - scoot over to ning.com or me.com, or if you have the skills, use drupal or dolphin to build one.
Actually t&c's of FB state -
This Site is intended solely for users who are thirteen (13) years of age or older, and users of the Site under 18 who are currently in high school or college. Any registration by, use of or access to the Site by anyone under 13, or by anyone who is under 18 and not in high school or college, is unauthorized, unlicensed and in violation of these Terms of Use. By using the Service or the Site, you represent and warrant that you are 13 or older and in high school or college, or else that you are 18 or older, and that you agree to and to abide by all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
lol was too lazy too look it up. It only just added the under 18s category in sept 2006. It used to be 18s (not 21's as I first thought. - Cant link to wikipedia as per SEOmoz post rules (unless thats changed - I have noticed a few... ) but pass by there and you will get the low down...
Regardless - there is a high percentage of users well in the adult category - higher than the non adult ... (please dont make me scrounge for more stats... ;-)
lol no problem - to be honest i was surprised at the 13 age requirement, thought it'd be older - then again advertising is always getting them younger. Demographics of FB are changing, with older people i know going on more and more. Still its amusing to see them relive their youth on FB! ;)
The age 13 limit is not surprising because the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") strictlly limits "general audience" sites from knowingly collecting information from children under age 13.
If your website is subject to COPPA because it either directly or indirectly collects information about children under 13, then you need to (1) a privacy notice (a BIG one--a tiny notice at the bottom of the page is not enough; (2) direct notice to parents that your site desires to collect personal information from their child and that a paretn's consent is required for this; and (3) a reasonable method to verify parental consent
"Information" includes first and last name, home address, email address, telephone number or social security number. The Federal Trade Commission has imposed significant fines and issued press releases detailing cases of non-compliance. UMG Recrdings paid $400,000, Mrs. Fields Cookies paid $100,000.00. and Hershey Foods paid $85,000.00.
Obviously, this is not a complete description of COPPA, but I hope it serves as a heads up to anyone out there creating sites that may collect information from children under 13.
So heads up folks.
Sarah - I'm really happy that your a mozzer now!
I dont think there's been a single post that hasnt enlightened me about online law!
Cheers and keep up the great work!!
Rob
Yep, I hate MySpace as well. I try to tell my kids and other young people how much better Facebook is and they give me that glazed-over look like, "Facebook? What's Facebook?"
I completely agree. But since I still have friends who haven't migrated to Facebook, I find myself visiting at least a couple of times a week. It's frustrating; however, interesting to watch how obviously hard and unsuccessfully they're trying to keep up, yet the site still remains so popular.
Yeah.! yaeah.. I stopped using myspace on the day one.. I dint likeb the interfce.. I dint like the options.. so I got out
Old people are really anoying.
I'm not rude I'm truthful. :p
-nikole (:
Yeah, that makes sense. The birthday app not being remotely functional is probably due to my sucky computer. Thanks for the tip!
In any case, I deleted my MySpace account months ago.
Hear, Hear, Rebecca! I like hearing your True Voice at the Moz!
Thank you,
Igor
I gave up on myspace a long time ago. I only use it to promote something I have an interest in.
And there's nothing checking my account only to find that I have been swamped with spam,and people who just got a crazy deal on a cell phone or some other product.
I remember when friendster was the cool, then Myspace came about. Now it seems more people are about facebook. I hope face book doesn't spoil
P.S. This is a good read for sure.
Kobe
speaking of spam...
lol.. why didnt you thumb it down Seanmag?
LOL, you calling me spam :)Just because I put my sig with my name I guess I am spam? :P
Anyways,I do like the article. Already bookmarked :)
Kobe - www.collegerut.com