In this Huffington Post story, Henry Blodget examines the future of the social networking site MySpace.
A few years back, MySpace was the king of the social networking world. Everyone in high school had one and if you were in a band, you needed it to survive. The words Twitter and Facebook were part of a different language. Then something happened. We graduated high school and Facebook became the college myspace. Along with any other trend MySpace started to flame out. Other than MySpace music, it didn’t have any staying power. Facebook now dominates the social networking world and now people of all ages flock to it.
There are many reasons why Facebook and Twitter won the war, but one of the reasons is that they managed to stay relevant in the news world. A huge majority of news outlets today have both Twitter accounts and Facebook fan pages. No one is afraid to use these social networking sites as professional tools. More and more people are using these sites to get their news and to give it. Individual journalists often use them to communicate with readers and to market themselves and their work. Check for yourself, the New York Times does not have a MySpace page.
Blodget describes how Rupert Murdoch was seen as a genius for purchasing MySpace for only $580 million. He had supposed huge plans for the site but was really looking to dump it before its value completely collapsed. He might be too late. A source suggests that MySpace did only $500-$600 million of revenue last year and actually lost money in the process. There’s a small chance it can be saved but that window is closing. Blodget compares it to former internet juggernauts, Lycos, Infoseek and Excite. I can’t even remember these names or what they did. Like Myspace and Murdoch, they were purchased at their peak of internet existence.
Luckily for Murdoch he didn’t spend as much as these companies did. I believe Myspace will soon be a distant memory, if it isn’t already.
I don’t know if MySpace’s downfall can be attributed to the normal ebb and flow of social cycles (like of one age group’s graduation from high school).
MySpace’s entire interface has become a mass jumble of ads, flashing graphics and the poor HTML skills of users–Totally frustrating to use.
You’re right–Unless you’re in a band, there’s not much MySpace can offer that other social networking sites can’t.
Facebook and Twitter’s sites are much more user-friendly and clean.