Four months ago, I decided to bite the bullet and join all of the “cool kids” on Myspace.com. Everyone’s doing it, I was told. My goal was to get re-acquainted with some old high school friends. I think it worked out pretty well.
My high school career was split in between two schools and I’ve caught up with students from both camps. It’s great to hear the stories of other classmates, especially those who have been married/divorced, have had children, etc. Literally everyone has an interesting story to tell including those who haven’t strayed too far from home. Since I’ve been away for a while, I like hearing about the changes however trivial or insignificant they maybe. Again, relating to my previous post on travel guides to America, I think you take for granted a lot of things about your home.
I wasn’t able to make it to my high school reunion in Texas and for that matter my honorary reunion in Michigan (eh, I didn’t receive an invite). Both have passed and as such, I’ve decided to focus my energy on ye ol’ blog instead of ye ol’ Myspace page. I’m not shutting it down completely, so technically I’m going back on my word to shut it down after reunion season. But it’s going to become a private club of sorts because, quite frankly, I never enjoyed using the site.
Perhaps I am cursed by my profession to expect certain standards for usability and presentation on the web. The Myspace admin and profile tools are crude and mediocre and I’m surprised it has as many users as it does because of this. Perhaps if Google had purchased them rather than News Corp, this would change. Something tells me though that News Corp is much more interested in a if-it-ain’t-broke-why-fix-it attitude and using Myspace to advertise the hip music, movies, comedy and so on. Not to mention the vast database marketing possibilities. I restrained myself from adding my “interests” because of that.
The idea and basic functionality behind Myspace, I will admit is novel and effective. The proof is in the pudding. It has become a fundamental part of social interaction among millions of people and I don’t think it will be going away anytime soon. I’ll just have to wait until the Next Big Thingâ„¢ comes along and marginalizes Myspace to the island of misfit social experiences (where Tupperware parties and Video dating services are waiting).
The personalization features are extremely powerful. As Uncle Ben says, with great power comes great responsibility and I know we’ve all seen Myspace pages where this responsibility has failed (cough, Deep Image!). However, like top 40 hits on the radio, it’s fun and you can’t criticize people for having it.
I also won’t deny how important of a marketing tool Myspace is for musicians. The first time I heard about Myspace a few years ago, I think it was concerning this trend. I know there are several Myspace users who only use the site for Music interests as opposed to the social interaction. Call me anti-social but I think that’s where my interest for the site lies now.
Bottom line: if you want the down-low on your’s truly, this is the place to be.
I was just listening to Damien Rice - Me, My Yoke and I