It's kind of hard to picture it now, but Myspace.com used to be the most popular social network on the internet. I remember girls getting mad if they weren't in your top eight, and songs playing on your main page for the viewers. Facebook was just a budding idea in the brain of a genius, starting to sprout up around college campuses in the northeast, but like a proud older brother, Myspace ruled the world.
At first, they competed with each other like a sibling rivalry should. Myspace added a messenger, and Facebook added a messenger. Facebook added tagged photo's, and Myspace added tagged photo's. But eventually the tide began to turn. Myspace got movie shout outs, ("So you guys on myspace orr??") but Facebook got movies (The Social Network, obv). Users were jumping ship. The Last Log-in timers that used to read 5 minutes ago now all read September 2009. It's almost as if Myspace just up and admitted that it's younger brother had become cooler and gave up.
Now I'm not saying that Myspace is terrible, I think it was ahead of its time and I respect it. But if there was a family Christmas party for websites, I think Facebook would show up in a limo with a hot date named Twitter, while Myspace would show up 2 hours late, hammered drunk, with it's nagging girlfriend Photobucket. It's not hard to imagine who Google and Yahoo! would be following around all night trying to talk to.
In all honesty, I think Myspace did it to itself. Facebook put a name to it's genius in Mark Zuckerberg. All we knew about the creator of Myspace was that he was some weird guy named Tom with a white t-shirt.
We never even learned Toms last name. He was just that guy who added every single person as a friend as soon as they made an account. And even as with being on everybody's friends list, he was never able to attain celebrity status on his own site. The most famous person that came away from Myspace was Tila Tequila.
Yet the most famous person from Facebok was Zuckerberg himself. Like the little brother that it was, it looked at the things that it's older sibling did that worked, and then added original ideas by itself to improve. Facebook built it's name by one-upping big brother to death. And just as it goes in life, It didn't take long for Graig Weidinger to become cooler than Beav, the younger brother succeeded.
Myspace still serves a purpose these days (I think?). It's the place where new bands and struggling comedians make pages and try to start a fan-base. But Facebook hosts "like" pages for already established bands and actors where fans can interact with the click of a button. NewsCorp, the company that bought Myspace in 2005 for $580 million dollars says they are open to selling, but they are waiting for the site to become profitable again.
Profitable???? We talkin about Playoffs???? Myspace blew that money so fast and you can catch him now sleeping on Atlantic City benches and begging tourists on Tennessee Ave for spare change to buy a 40 oz. of Old English. Facebook rules the world now and I don't foresee anything changing that in the near future. It's continuing to grow, (I heard some ridiculous stat that one of every three people in the world has an account, insane, I know) and it's making AOL and Hotmail two very, very proud parents.
Somewhere, Myspace just crawled into a ditch and stayed there.
Facebook didn't even organize a funeral.
I never had a MySpace account and I never really regretted not having one. I dont wanna hang out with the older brother and Photobucket when I could be chill-clubbin with the Zuck and Google in the V.I.P. I know Im cooler than my older brother and Graig Weidinger is probably 10x's cooler than Beav. If Jeff has an older brother it wouldnt even be fair. Things just get better over time. It's science. R.I.P. MySpace
ReplyDeletePervs around America are pissed that myspace went down-hill.
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