Archive for February, 2006

Let me get two things out right up front, before I get entangled in them:

1. MySpace scares the hell out of me 2. I’ve spent a total of like 20 minutes on MySpace (and 15 of those was due to exploring K-Fed’s contacts, just for kicks and giggles)

That said, there has been a lot of conversation about MySpace recently – particularly among those of us who make our living in blogging. And y’know what? The more we talk about it, the more MySpace scares me. And, while I may not have as much personal experience as might seem appropriate for a post like this (see point #1), I have a lot of friends who live on MySpace, and I’ve been picking their brains for the last 3 months.

A quick rundown of the ‘facts’ (there are no MySpace tracking tools, so this is based solely on info MySpace is releasing about once every month or two):

MySpace is Bigger Than Blogging: There are more nearly as many MySpace accounts as blogs (about 30M vs about 100M. More of them are started every day than blogs (about 250,000 vs about 100,000). There are more posts per day being made on MySpace than on all blogs combined (about 1.5M vs about 1.4M).

MySpace is Accelerating Faster Than Blogging: Considering it is much newer than blogging, this should be obvious. While it is currently smaller than blogs, at the current rate of growth and acceleration, it will be larger than blogging by this summer. That is ALL of blogging.

MySpace’ers Network. Fast: It isn’t that unusual to find MySpace accounts with thousands of connections. While many (outside of MySpace) might think that these connections are useless, the truth is that they represent the ability for networks to form quickly, and when graphed they do show that certain people are more likely to connect nodes and groups of nodes than others.

Now, the real question is WHY does MySpace scare me. And, to me, the answer is: the same reason it should damned well scare anyone in business, technology or blogging.

So, WHY?

MySpacers connect better than bloggers, get their friends into it better than bloggers, stay in touch more than bloggers, and form true sociological pods better than bloggers. MySpace is closer to the Google Grid than Google is. MySpace is the closest humanity has ever come to a central community or a central consciousness. MySpace’ers are the largest and most distributed network of human nodes ever created and sustained for more than a few days (tests on human networks of up to 10M people have been tried, but they ultimately fall apart, often faster than they can be created).

Beyond that, there are other reasons MySpace scares the hell out of me. Here are a few questions to try and show why:

1. When we eventually have 100M people (primarily 10-25) on MySpace, how does their culture affect other ‘cultures’ outside of MySpace? 2. When there are that many people, will MySpace’ers begin being elite? 3. When will businesses begin seriously targetting MySpace (some are already)? 4. How will businesses effectively engage in conversations with Spacers when so, so, so little of MySpace is broadcast oriented, and when Spacers do so little searching for new connections? 5. What happens if MySpace goes down? At what point do services like MySpace become so a part of the overall culture (due to people having spent years on there AS WELL as because a significant portion of the culture ‘lives’ there) that MySpace becomes a reflection of culture. If that happens, do we need to backup MySpace? Similarly, should we be backing up Google, as a point in time reflection of the web? 6. When will law-makers begin legislating MySpace? 7. How would MySpace’s networks reform if MySpace went down? What would be the impact on young people who are fragile and completely alone in the world apart from MySpace? 8. What kind of ecosystem can be built around MySpace (technology wise)?

I am dead serious when I say that MySpace scares the hell out of me. It is, as we watch, making blogging obsolete. The technical elite that rule blogging now will soon be completely dwarfed by the 20 somethings as they graduate, get jobs and begin to gain influence. Blogging’s end is coming, and its name is MySpace.

Give it 18-24 months, and MySpace will be the new desire of businesses everywhere. You thought journalists had it in for bloggers for being snivvly, write-in-pajamas, teen freaks? Just wait until they get ahold of MySpace.

While the community is incredibly fragmented now, it won’t take very many attack articles from journalists before Spacers begin coalescing their networks, realizing their power and using it.

The power of a community of 100M people (and, let’s face it, blogging isn’t really that much of a community overall). The need to support that many people, as a society, when their culture starts to become incredibly distinct. The need to preserve that culture is huge. Almost as huge as the need will become by some to try and dominate the culture.

Let’s be fair. In April, MySpace will become the most trafficked site on the planet. By the end of the year, MySpace will account for roughly 10% of all web traffic and, by the end of 2006 (if growth and acceleration curves maintain), it will account for about 40% (accounting for a plateau, because realistically we can’t have more people on MySpace than are on the entire web).

MySpace, I’m sure, rocks to the people who are in it. And similar, competing, services will grow up. Maybe the ecosystem will self-select to the point of making all of my fears a moot point.

But, what if it doesn’t. What if, eventually, every person between the ages of 13-25 has a MySpace account and is at least partially active on it to some degree. What happens to society, culture and them? How will business and the culture outside be affected by that? What is the impact on humanity if MySpace becomes intrinsically tied to the identity of an entire generation?

Yeah, MySpace scares me.