Why Everyone Wants MySpace
Why is MySpace so popular? None of the sites on MySpace are exactly designed for speed or beauty. Every page is filled with advertising–not that that’s a bad thing (at least for ad people anyway), but over-advertising is one of the cardinal no-no’s of web publishing. It can kill a site that would otherwise be successful. But the one thing that MySpace provides (in bulk) that outweighs any flaws in execution or presentation is the community.
Community-building is one of the most important things an internet-centric service can provide. It not only builds customer loyalty and site traffic, but it also breeds what are called “fanboys”: a disorganized rabble of miscreants who will not only proclaim your service’s virtues from every mountain top (WoM), but will also defend that same service to the death against nay-sayers, ne’er-do-wells and other hooligans.
It’s not that MySpace particularly excels at innovative community-building services. Each community-building service that MySpace provides, from blogs and “friends” to forums and groups, has been done before by someone else. That someone else, whether it was a name like Yahoo or a no-name service that has since fallen off the Web 1.0 map, did it better faster and with more panache than MySpace ever did. But unlike the rest, MySpace put them all together in one integrated package. Once the kids got their hands on it, it quickly hit critical mass, spawning more fanboys than red players on Halo capture-the-flag night.
MySpace doesn’t just incorporate community-building features, but it links them tightly together, something essential for growth, since it encourages people to use more aspects of the site and rave about it to their friends. For example, clicking on a person’s picture in the forum takes you directly to that person’s profile page. Form there you can connect directly to a person’s blog, pictures, interests, and a list of their friends from which you can link to their profile pages as well. MySpace also includes a hot-or-not style rating system, groups (like Yahoo or Google groups), events, classifieds, and music (MySpace started out as a site to promote unsigned bands). Profiles are also location-centric, meaning a MySpace user will actually be able to connect with people in his or her area. Phew.
MySpace’s tight integration of a million different community-building services lets users whittle away the hours by “surfing” MySpace. The lure of friendship is a strong one; everyone wants it. There is no stronger bond in life than the one between individuals. And MySpace has capitalized on it with advertising. Despite having one of the world’s ugliest web sites, the sheer number of users has made advertising on MySpace among the most desirable on the internet.
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