The decline of MySpace has been well documented in recent weeks.
Twitter is flavour of the month (not sure if you’re noticed?). There are thousands of dedicated MySpace users out there but News Limited failed to come up with a viable monetization strategy and their interests seems to be waning.
Facebook seems to be going through an interesting stage in its life. I’ve realised that I get far less out of Facebook than I used to. I rarely watch videos in Facebook these days – for example, which is an outcome of the revised layout. I can understand why Facebook has the urge to re-organise and refresh the layout because – lets face it – its pretty uninspiring after the 1000th visit. Its problematic that, in doing so, they alienate their users.
I’ve heard quite a few people complain about the chat facility – they’re not on Facebook to chat – they are there to snoop, upload photos and links and send messages.
I can’t quite fathom why people bother with the applications:
So and so took the What Penguin Book are you? quiz and the answer is Of Mice and Men.
Who cares?
It seems to me that Facebook is useful for people living overseas (far away from friends and family) but that typically the network of contacts that it engages is typically the day to day people that you hang out with and see very regularly. The content has the most relevance to them, they’re probably involved in your content (in photos, at the same events).
Facebook seems to be acting as a communications mechanism for groups of people that are already tightly knit. I may look at an old friend’s photos but it rarely prompts any direct interaction with that person – other than the occasional comment maybe, which they may or may not respond to.
I don’t use Facebook to search for information – I might use YouTube for this, I use MySpace to look up bands.
Which makes me wonder what the future is for Facebook?
Surely a true social network connects people that wouldn’t be connected otherwise – this is where Twitter comes into its own and I think there are a number of other situations where social networks might have a more active future:
In situations where individuals are physically linked in some tenuous or co-incidental way, by interest, location or routine, but where there is value in a platform that facilitates a conversation or interaction or collaboration that might not have occurred otherwise.
I don’t expect MySpace or Facebook to go anywhere soon but maybe we’ll see the emergence of niche social networks, which offer the ability to inter-connect small networks and create a highly personalised combination of networks.
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Nice commentary. I have been screaming into the void regarding the depressing re-formatting of Facebook. For me, the major change was in the decreased control given to users regarding the graphic layout of their profile page. Before, one could adjust the size of uploaded photos, videos, etc. Now everything is uniform, resulting in an absence of correlation between form and content — a diminishment of individuality. Whereas, before the change, a user could foment self-expression via the arrangement of the profile page, now he is left only with prefabricated quizzes of an increasingly sinister inconsecuentiality with which to define himself. Seems like the corporate hand is at work, choreographing a uniformity whose economic intent has not yet been unveiled.