Why Facebook, Not MySpace?
I’ve always wondered why Facebook has become as big as it has. After all, there was already a social networking giant in existence when Facebook came around. All my friends were on MySpace, and it seemed like the rest of the world was too. How did Facebook beat MySpace and why did everyone decide to switch? I decided to look into this phenomenon and found this article:
http://www.stockmarketinvest.org/top_stories/how-facebook-beat-myspace/
In 2006, MySpace dominated the social networking world. MySpace controlled 80% of the weekly share of visits to social networking sites in the United States, compared to less than 10% for Facebook. By 2009, the tides had completely reversed and MySpace has since disappeared into relative obscurity. According to the article, one primary reason for Facebook’s rise was its appeal to the mainstream population. MySpace appealed to the early adopters of social networking sites with the ability to customize one’s page to however they please. As a MySpace user, you could add music, wallpaper, videos, and several other applications. However, this resulted in cluttered pages and led many to believe that MySpace was tacky. Facebook, on the other hand, opted for a much cleaner and more structured look and was soothingly Spartan.
With this information, let’s analyze the phenomenon from a “networks” perspective. MySpace grew quick due to a strong base of early adopters. These people were probably a select group who really enjoyed the customizability of the site and thus enjoyed a positive payoff. This inevitably led to a cascade that was based on very little information. People simply began to adopt MySpace as their social networking site due to direct-benefit effects. As more people began using it, the direct-benefit grew and grew since one could connect with so many people. However, we know that cascades can be wrong, and that was most likely the case with MySpace. Many users who adopted the site must have had negative experiences with it, and thus they made the switch to the much simpler Facebook. Since the cascade that launched MySpace was based on so little information, it was easy to start. However, this also made the cascade very fragile, and the early adopters of Facebook were able to overturn it.
Facebook, at the time, was seen as much more exclusive and less tacky, and so it developed a strong base of its own early adopters. This inevitably led to another cascade, and launched Facebook onto the social networking radar. Among other things, many users enjoyed the structure and simplicity that MySpace did not offer, and so a combination of information effect and direct-benefit effects made Facebook the more popular social networking site among the mainstream population.
These days, Facebook famously has 500 million users. Yet, it also no longer boasts the exclusivity and simplicity that it did during its meteoric rise. So why do people still use it? Why don’t people turn to another social networking site? After all, that’s what happened to MySpace. One explanation could be that Facebook has essentially developed into more than just a site, but rather a lifestyle platform with its own ecosystem. It has reached a point where the direct-benefit effects greatly outweigh the smaller niche social networking sites. The cascade has continued to a point where adopters today do not search for alternative sites and base their decision to adopt Facebook on little to no information. We all want to use what everyone else is using. However, cascades are certainly fragile, as we have seen with MySpace. With that in mind, Facebook might be the next MySpace.
Facebook will get tired under the fact that the majority of its users (children and teenagers) believe that Facebook and Youtube are the whole World Wide Web. Also, since one and only one company controls it, expect some privacy/monopoly and semi-legal issues in not so distant future. The majority of my Facebook friends are my real-life friends, simply because that’s all I can find (the search engine reacts only on names of people and groups/pages). We reached a long time ago knowledge what people like to do online: reading, writing, watching, listening, playing, blogging… Facebook just doesn’t allow an optional usage of networking tools existing for ages. It could be a standard the same way books have been printed and published for centuries ass papers between covers (instead e.g. scrolls or envelops). Social networks will either merge or collapse one by one. http://www.facebook.com/groups/222084301195017/
I disagree with Aleksandar. Facebook completely taps into what people enjoy doing online through its Apps. In fact, it does it better by telling users what their friends are reading, writing, watching, listening to, playing, and blogging, outside of Facebook. For example, this is evident through the updates on the News Feed, informing users that a friend is reading an article, or listening to a song on Spotify, or is playing Words With Friends… in addition, it allows users to share links to anything they feel is worth telling friends ABOUT, and even allows its own blogging through the Notes tab and pages like the one you shared the link to.
Social networks have already merged… Facebook has dominated, and I doubt it’s going anywhere anytime soon. With a CEO in his twenties, the company has a good chance of being able to keep current with what users want and adjust accordingly.
There is Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Blogger, Disqus… I can search for “tweets” across the whole Twitter or individual profiles by the search engine, but I can’t find a thing in someone’s Timeline on Facebook (not to mention new people with interesting hobbies/activities). Why? The technology is there. Instagram has been bought by Facebook because there is a slightly superior design and, yes, a search engine (that thing on Facebook that allows me to search only names of people/groups/apps (and not their content)) doesn’t deserve to be called a search engine. Facebook should be a starting point for something bigger and more interactive and serious, a database for people and their contacts and links towards activities ANYWHERE (I can’t post this comment on my Timeline, or any group activity or post/like (shares are visible) on someone else’s Facebook profile (things visible on my profile before Timeline appeared)) across the Web. For something like that to happen, there should be less fighting between companies and more respect for BILLIONS of potential users of the next generation of World Wide Web.