Week3: Respond to content

Did Facebook kill MySpace?

Having spent time researching why MySpace slowly decreased in popularity, I couldn’t help but notice that although there is no exact diagnosis, this decrease had a lot to do with the birth of Facebook. The second reason suggesting the downfall of MySpace is its devotion to “teenage living” (Kirkpatrick 2009). This social network appealed largely to a teenage audience. And Like most teens, they grow out of it. I believe a combination of the two played major roles in the demise of MySpace.

When comparing Facebook to MySpace, one can see just how easily beaten MySpace is. In fact, I attempted to sign up to MySpace as research, and found that the ‘sign up’ page actually has a direct link to Facebook. But why has Facebook overruled MySpace?

Research shows that Facebook members prefer to use this site to maintain and initiate relationships they have offline (Dwyer, Hiltz & Passerini 2007, p.g 8). In 2008, over 54% of MySpace users reported meeting someone face to face, compared to only 27% of Facebook users (Dwyer, Hiltz and Passerini 2007). This suggests that Facebook appears to be fulfilling a purpose that users of social networks desire; whether it is upholding or commencing, people want relationships that are not based on face to face interaction. Coherent with this research are the figures that 100% of Facebook members include their real name within their profile, while only 66.7% of MySpace users do (Dwyer, Hiltz & Passerini 2007, p.g 7). Further demonstrating that Facebook users feel that this particular social network is more personal, thus reinforcing the idea that Facebook is the more preferred site when interacting with others.

Facebook certainly has greater power over MySpace, today. With Facebook having 750 million active users, it’s hard to compete (Facebook: statistics 2011). However, we cannot forget that MySpace was once the ‘it’ social network. With Facebook killing MySpace, perhaps something will one day kill Facebook.

REFERENCE LIST:

Kirkpatrick, M 2009, MySpace is dead: The internet is growing up, weblog 24 April, viewed 25 August 2011, http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/myspace_is_dead_-_the_internet_is_growing_up.php

Facebook: statistics, 2011, viewed 25 August 2011, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Dwyer, Hiltz & Passerini 2007, Trust and Privacy Concern within Social Networking Sites: A comparison of Facebook and MySpace, viewed 25 August 2011, http://csis.pace.edu/~dwyer/research/DwyerAMCIS2007.pdf


Death of MySpace, n.d, image, viewed 25 August 2011, http://www.forget-about.it/myspace/death-of-myspace/