So, I logged in to my MySpace account last night for the first time in … ohhh … three months, maybe four, maybe more? I knew I had a bunch of messages, friend requests, and blog subscriptions accumulating in a digital landfill.
Like most people, the first thing that struck me after my long absence was how much MySpace was trying to emulate Facebook. Adding apps, MySpace chat, a new Facebookish friend timeline, etc. All this, but without much effort to spruce up their user interface. In fact, many of the new tools appear shoehorned into MySpace’s GUI, which was never all that user-friendly to begin with.
For perhaps the most telling symptom of their growing failure, look to MySpace’s “Online Friends” indicator which shows how many of your friends are online and available to chat right there and then. It’s the equivalent to Facebook’s “Chat” indicator in the lower right corner of the user interface.
While I was on MySpace last night, I was also logged in to Facebook. On MySpace, I have 886 friends. Meanwhile, on Facebook, I have 554 friends. At that time, out of 554 Facebook friends, over 30 were online. Guess how many of my 886 MySpace friends were online at the same time?
One.
The simple fact is that not a lot of people use or spend a lot of time on MySpace anymore.
The niche market that MySpace still addresses better than Facebook is people who deliver audible media to the public: bands, musicians, singers, stand-up comedians, etc. They don’t measure up quite as well with regards to writers and publishers.
Not that anyone at MySpace is asking for my opinion, but if I were in charge over there, I’d chase that performer market and slowly shed pursuing social networking for average individuals. The simple fact is, they’re not in that game anymore. And they won’t be in in that game every again unless they make some radical changes.
