Not My Space Anymore
In August of 2006, MySpace, widely regarded as the time’s leading social network, had its 100 millionth account created (http://seekingalpha.com/article/15237-rupert-murdoch-comments-on-fox-interactives-growth), and Facebook was still only available to people with valid harvard.edu email addresses. Within four years, MySpace was floundering as Facebook’s user base surpassed half a billion (http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443635404578036164027386112?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10000872396390443635404578036164027386112.html). Why did this switch occur so quickly?
Using the concepts we have studied in class, the diffusion of a new technology will only happen in a network if the number of neighbors of a certain node using the new technology is above a threshold fraction. Because the growth of Facebook was ridiculously fast, it is reasonable to assume that the threshold fraction is quite low for many social media users. There are many possible explanations for this, and it often depends on who you ask. Many say that the overall “clean” appearance of Facebook stole users away from MySpace’s cluttered, confusing, and ad-ridden interface (http://gigaom.com/2011/04/08/was-it-google-who-killed-myspace/). However, one researcher, Danah Boyd, presents an interesting argument as to the cause of the MySpace-to-Facebook migration. She argues that younger social media users left MySpace and went to Facebook because MySpace was transforming into a “digital ghetto,” and the teens were driven away from the former site by the same forces that fueled the White Flight phenomena in the 1960’s and 1970’s (http://www.technobuffalo.com/2010/07/18/why-did-everyone-leave-myspace-for-facebook/). Sean Aune, a TechnoBuffalo contributor, wrote an article on Boyd’s research, saying that he personally switched sites for the same aesthetic reasons as many others: “No more glittery graphics, no more auto-playing music and no hideously ugly profile pages where you couldn’t read the text.” Whatever the causes may be, Facebook was able to construct a new website that overpowered MySpace with ease and is still growing to this day.