So what the heck happened to Myspace and where in the world did Facebook come from?
hmmmm….
Back in the years preceding 2009, MySpace used to be the most dominant player in the social media world. It used to be the go to place for anyone who needed some social networking and interaction. People opened accounts and shared photos and other materials across the MySpace platform. The site would however only enjoy its social media giant status until April 2008 when Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook sprung up and overtook it!
Many users started abandoning their accounts on MySpace and concentrating on Facebook ever since.
As a result of users quiting MySpace for Facebook, the former social media bigwig has been on a losing trail. It has been losing users year after year and has reported financial losses too. From a site which used to have over 72 million monthly users, MySpace has been reduced to a place with only 50 million users. This figure is still enviable but of course it pales off when compared to the 1.59 billion users who visit Facebook each month.
Over the years, MySpace has traded hands but none of the corporations which has had a chance to own it has been able to revive it to its former glory. MySpace was initially owned by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson. The two then sold it to News Corporation in 2005 who later sold it to Viant in 2011. The site now belongs to Time Inc after Time purchased Viant recently. Only time can tell whether Time will succeed where its predecessors have failed and revive MySpace.
Due to the giant that MySpace used to be, one cannot help but what really happened such that Facebook came from nowhere and overtook it. This was a site which was bigger than the likes of Yahoo! and Google and whose attention every advertiser was vying for, how could it sink so much to a new entrant, Facebook? Well, there are a number of reasons why MySpace is now a ghost town in the soils of social media –
The first reason why MySpace lost to Facebook is because it hopped over what Facebook dwelt on, promoting social interaction. MySpace concentrated on advertising and neglected social interaction, something that was Facebook’s biggest focus. Social interaction is the biggest part of any social media platform and without it, a social media platform will slowly fade into oblivion. Facebook fostered social interaction by encouraging people to use their real names and allowing people to interact with each other on a personal as well as a group level. MySpace on the other hand promoted the use of pseudonames and this could not encourage a close person to person to person interaction. MySpace also did not introduce ways of letting users share personal details such as their daily activities like Facebook did and therefore it didn’t encourage social interaction.
The second reason why MySpace bowed to Facebook is because Facebook concentrated on people while MySpace concentrated on things. Facebook gave importance to individuals, it gave people a chance to share who they are. MySpace on the other hand concentrated on letting people share things such as music and photographs and also focused on things such as celebrity gossip as opposed to people themselves. This is one area in which Facebook had an edge over MySpace as people are an important part of any project.
The third reason why Facebook overtook MySpace was because Facebook was constantly looking for innovative ways to rebrand itself and make itself to users while MySpace didn’t rebrand much and also failed whenever they attempted to do so.
That is my thoughts and opinions…….. Maybe Myspace will make a comeback someday or maybe it will disappear, maybe even facebook will be taken out by something bigger we do not even know about yet? Only the future will tell
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