MySpace is the New Blogosphere
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.
POSTED IN: Business
37 opinions for MySpace is the New Blogosphere
Jon Gales
Feb 21, 2006 at 6:24 pm
Why be scared? Harness it before someone else does. I’ve been on MySpace for about two years and love it. But I keep it strictly personal–no business networking for me, despite having found plenty of people I know from work on there. I keep up with people that I see or used to see frequently and it excels at that. It’s much easier to invite all your friends to a party with MySpace than the phone.
The MySpace sales team in my opinion has done a piss poor job at selling their massive inventory. As a advertiser I should be able to contextually target, like I can at Google. Why can’t I sign up today, make an ad, and have it shown to males ages 18-24 in a certain set of zip codes that have one of a number of bands mentioned in their profile? Along the same lines, club promoters could target all 18+ girls that are single in a city. Us kids are so crazy that there could even be a whole section of featured promotions targeted to each user and it would get views.
Google does well with contextually matching ads based only on a few bits of data (mostly search query and then location). MySpace knows *so* much more about everyone that it’s insane. Match ads to my fav bands, tv shows, likes, dislikes, age, sex, location, status, religion, education etc etc.
Hopefully Murdoch knows this and will figure out how to do it because it’s a huge market. They could outsell Google in advertising.
Tris
Feb 21, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Yeah Jeremy … I think you have some really good points … but I think MySpace will continue to be more social, but what blogging will become will be something else and still important.
Jim Turner
Feb 21, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Great, now I am going to have nightmares.
Peter T Davis
Feb 21, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Are you feeling insecure about your business model Jeremy? I think it’s true that blogging’s heyday is passing, not necessarily because of MySpace. Google is probably a bigger threat to most small internet businesses, including professional blogs, than MySpace. What MySpace does isn’t exactly the same thing as what blogs do. Some of it is exactly that, but there are some thing about blogs that MySpace could never extinguish. Do you feel that MySpace poses a threat to blog networks specifically? What’s the exit strategy of your business plan, (rhetorical question, I’m not expecting an answer), I’ve noticed that often people get insecure about their business because they didn’t have a clear exit strategy when going into it.
Jeremy Wright
Feb 21, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Peter, no, no nervousness due to blog networking. And, even if there was, I don’t feel that the significant impact of MySpace will be felt for a couple of years yet. This was more from my ‘blog consultant’ standpoint than my ‘blog network owner’ standpoint :)
From the blog network standpoint, I don’t see MySpace coalescing into units that would compete with us anytime soon (if ever), and I don’t see a lot of Spacers creating major profit centers for themselves anytime soon either. Maybe someday, but not before 2008 at the earliest.
And, really, if we’ve got 2-3 years of the blog network space left before *some* disruption, that isn’t bad at all :)
Peter T Davis
Feb 21, 2006 at 9:59 pm
I’ve also been wondering how many of those millions of members are spammers. Dunno how many people have noticed, but there’s a thriving underground market going in MySpace accounts with thousands of “friends”.
Michael
Feb 21, 2006 at 10:01 pm
(Un?)fortunately it is a great way of getting your music out there and connecting with other musicians… which is the reason I have become a MySpace Music whore… really, there is no better name for it is there?!.
I agree with you though Jer - very scary, if not just for the fact that it allows people to turn out the most horribly designed web pages the world has ever born witness to… and it’s full of semi-pornographic advertising, which I find most off-putting.
Eric Eggertson
Feb 21, 2006 at 11:23 pm
I’ve dipped into MySpace land in the last week or two (and coincidentally Tris is one of the folks whose space I visited). I’ll have to go back and give it another look.
Cary
Feb 21, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Hmmm…I’m sure you don’t mean it this way, Jeremy, but your argument sounds almost xenophobic to me.
MySpace is just a bunch of networked people/web-pages. No less, no more. When people all over the world find ways to communicate and interact, well, that sounds like a good thing to me :)
The only thing to worry about is whether or not we can adapt to change. If we can’t adapt to change then it doesn’t really matter whether it’s MySpace or something else… I mean, change is the only certainty – well, that and a moron in the Whitehouse ;)
Peter T Davis
Feb 22, 2006 at 12:35 am
This paper might be relevant to the discussion.
http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html
Sam
Feb 22, 2006 at 5:55 am
usenet anyone?
It’s just the latest in a long line of networking / communication channels and will eventually be superseded by something superior.
What concerns me is that you are worried what happens to the people / teenagers only connected in this way when the network fails. I’m worried about those people when the network keeps going! What a way to live your life, where your most important relationships are conducted through semiconductors and wires instead of in person. I hate that.
TDavid
Feb 22, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Over the weekend I finally registered for Myspace and my ID number suggested I was in the 57 million number, so where did you see they had 30 million members Jeremy?
I realize people can start ID numbers at any number so it certainly isn’t very scientific using that as a basis but I’m curious if they publish their actual member number somewhere like some of the dating sites do.
My overall impresssion fo MySpace was totally unimpressed. If I was ever going to break GreaseMonkey out, it would be for MySpace. Still, you are right Jeremy, it is much too large a site to be ignored.
I’m trying to figure out how we might be able to utilyze MySpace either for personal, business or both. Am open to MySpace veteran commentary .. which anybody that has signed up prior to last Sunday is a veteran in my book.
Nick D
Feb 22, 2006 at 3:24 pm
For the most part, MySpace is used to stay in touch with your friends. People don’t care too much about what people they don’t know have to say as they do in the blogoshpere.
Anyone who has a lot of friends on their account either are saying something provocative in their profile, have a scantily clad pic, or they went out and made friend requests to random people that had something provocative say in their profile ,or have a scantily clad pic. Id say about 10-20% of people in someones profile are someone that have actually met in real life.
A lot of people on MySpace are attention whores. They gain virtual friends that represent something vapid in comparison to adding someone to your blogroll in the blogosphere. In the blogosphere, we add people to our blogroll because we read their blogs, like what they have to say about technology or politics, or the politics of technology. On MySpace, people add people as their friends that they do not know personally because they like their hair style, their tattoos, they like the bands the prospective friend likes. Most of the network effect is useless is you where to compare it to the effects of the blogosphere.
I don’t even think most people use their MySpace actually blog. Most of the activity is leaving “testimonials” which are like running comments for the users profile. Most are “you’re hot,” or “thanks for adding me.” If you want to talk about a network effect/community of actual bloggers, take a look at LiveJournal. There are more people on LiveJournal who really have something to say, and are actively blogging. Like MySpace, you have the built-in ability to add another LJ member as a friend, and subscribe within LJ.
If anything, MySpace gets young people familiar with interacting with people on the web. There will be no technology barrier as there is with bommers right now. When the current young generation get older, MySpace will become less important, real friends will become more important, and actual blogging about things they care about will be the norm. So, MySpace is growing the bolggers (as we know and care about) of the future.
I have been a MySpace user since I was 28. I am 31 now. I just started a real blog in August of last year because the things I wanted to blog about would not get any attention on MySpace. I outgrew it. There is no one looking for the next great essay on MySpace. No one is posting bulletins on MySpace about someone’s great blog post unless it is something that is funny. (btw, I am seeing MySpace blog results come up on Feedster.)
David T, the reason for the discrepancy in user numbers is because there are a lot of spammers on MySpace, but the accounts are shut down in a matter of days because the community reports them.
Sam, lets give kids some credit. They can find a number of ways to connect with people on the net. There is IM, e-mail, a number of upcoming competing sites like TagWorld. I bet they can name more sites that they could join than you could. It is just something that is on their radar.
When Friendster started trying to regulate the network affect (mid 2003) of actual friends, they got a lot of flack. They placed limits on the number of friends someone could make. Freindster deleted “fakesters,” profiles of fake people that were made just for laughs. In a matter of months, everyone ditched Friendster and moved to MySpace. MySpace is now owned my NewsCorp. One false move, and everyone is going to jump over to TagWorld, and they will use MySpace to get the word out.
Nick D
Feb 22, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Danah Boyd just release a paper about MySpace. ” Blog” is not mentioned in it at all. I point this out because I want to point out that not blogging, journal, or diary are not mentioned in the paper.
http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html
Paul Chaney
Feb 22, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Let’s face it, SOMETHING had to be the Next Big Thing. Nothing on the Internet owns dominion over everything else, or is destined to last forever, not even blogging. I’m less reactionary than Jeremy to the effects of MySpace, though not unconcerned. I think blogging will fade into the background, so to speak, as it becomes more commonly accepted and woven into the fabric of the Internet, integrated into other apps. But, it will always have a place. It’s made too much of an impact not too.
But, then again, what do I know? I’m 50 years old and just renting space here in this new frontier that is owned by 20-somethings like Jeremy.
BTW, Jeremy, thanks for sounding the alarm on this. It serves us all well to have the potential impact of MySpace brought to our attention.
Brad
Feb 22, 2006 at 6:52 pm
“Kids these days use the Internet too darn much, we used to have to walk in snow uphill both ways to the computer lab to post on USENET!!” Seriously, I don’t follow you. Are you afraid of youngsters using the Internet too much, or of them being too reliant on one company’s servers? Either way I don’t see what’s so scary. Mind boggling, maybe, but not scary.
Jonathan
Feb 22, 2006 at 8:43 pm
I use MySpace almost solely for networking, because as you say, there’s no easier way to network. I can add friends incredibly easily, and once they’re added I can see everything they’re posting in one simple view. No adding RSS feeds manually :)
And I agree with the comment about music. My two latest favourite bands were found on MySpace (Methodology, and Wolfmother).
BUT! MySpace is hella slow. They are in serious serious need of restructuring. I say restructuring because I think their issue is poor planning and unanticipated growth, not so much the “not enough servers” problem.
Ann
Feb 22, 2006 at 8:50 pm
You over estimate its impact. To me it is nothing more then another one of these lame free dating sites. I’ll go on there once a week to read the emails of men begging for dates but that’s about it. The content is completely lacking. Most people spruce up there page and put on a few nude pictures to get some attention and that’s where it ends.
zephoria
Feb 22, 2006 at 9:54 pm
The main reason that i did not discuss blogging is because the panelist before me explicitly took up blogging and youth culture. I have written other things on blogging. For the purpose of this thread, yes, many of my arguments are deeply connected to blogging in the Xanga/LJ sense… the blogging component of MySpace is only a fraction of what happens. Yet, the self-expression aspect is very similar. For those interested in my latest blogging paper, drop me an email. It’s currently in review so it’s not on my website.
Andy Wibbels
Feb 22, 2006 at 9:59 pm
I love it: Great panic-post! I see you in a mumu in a walker stomping off and yelling ‘You kids git off mah frunt porch!’
Chris Knittel
Feb 22, 2006 at 11:44 pm
It’s amusing that a week or so ago CNN had a segment which focused almost entirely on Myspace and how its now the “breeding” grounds for pedophiles and stalkers on the Internet. Myspace (and Fox’s owners) took that seriously and created a Czar to head its security/protection efforts. Thats mainly been the focus of myspace. How its stealing the youth, perverting it.
Jeremy, you seem to be the first older person who gets it.
I’ve been on Myspace since its fairly early days. Before it became a fade. Joined it just like Orkut, Friendster, etc. It’s the only one outside of Facebook (another powerhouse or soon will be) that I’ve stuck with. Why? Despite the annoying user CSS “features,” massive lags and slowdowns and sometimes incomplete features, it’s the perfect social network. Almost every single person I know is on there, I’ve met more people through myspace (in real space) than through any other service.
My friends and I use it to organize events between ourselves and others. Its ability to market smaller bands is unheard of and now they’ve released their own semi-external blogging ability as well.
Myspace is the embrace and extend that so many other companies try to be. It just does it viarally. Whats more, it’s built up from the new baby boomers whatever our generation names is. Myspace most likely will fail in time, whether under its own weight or something better comes along but until then, there’s nothing else on the internet that holds the attention of the 14 to 25 age group anywhere.
P.J. Onori
Feb 23, 2006 at 3:22 am
From the time I’ve spent looking through MySpace, I was anything but impressed with what I saw. First and foremost, it came off as some giant web-based collective where individual personalities were lost in the background hum. Frankly, the big thinkers - the cream of the crop sort of people shy away from that very environment - it’s not going to invite respect or acceptance from many of the creative/intellectual elite.
JarFil
Feb 23, 2006 at 5:20 am
I think you’re both right and wrong at the same time, and I think this same post will serve to prove my point: blogs are mostly about text, while Myspaces are mostly about photos/visual.
Obviously visual clues are better than text-only ones, and that’s the way to go for future blogging, but whether would it be myspaces or the next generation of blogs, I think that’s to be seen. I think those who understand users prefer photos instead of bare text, they will survive. The rest will be forgotten.
David Evans
Feb 23, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Blowing up is one thing, people leaving in droves because it’s no longer popular is another. That’s why I mentioned the cottage industry that is growing up around Myspace, providing add-on features and services to myspace users. I should have gone into more detail about exporting myspace profiles to an extended FOAF format.
Michael
Feb 23, 2006 at 7:47 pm
So where do I get my pitchfork and “Down with Jeremy” sign? :-\
I thought the post was right on mate and I’m not just saying that coz you’re a stella individual…
H
Feb 23, 2006 at 8:30 pm
You got me scared now J, I was quite relaxed before reading yer post - now I need a stiff drink! :)
Michael
Feb 24, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Interesting…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11064451/
Jim Kukral
Feb 24, 2006 at 7:58 pm
How about a B2B Myspace? Closest thing I can think of is Linkedin, and tha’ts not even that close. I admit, I don’t have a myspace account. But I’m going to have to go get one now.
matt
Feb 25, 2006 at 2:32 pm
http://www.howradical.com/articles/2006/02/25/the-myspace-balloon
Tiago
Feb 25, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Maybe this article about MySpace being a mirage will calm you down.
Jared Goralnick
Feb 26, 2006 at 2:13 pm
Nick and P.J. got it right when about who is generally attracted to myspace. While there are certainly myspace members posting about serious topics, the web-at-large is a better place to attract people interested in more in-depth, focused discussions. Myspace and facebook will continue to grow as ways to keep in touch with people, meet folks with similar interests, and discover new music. But my guess is that they’ll need to significantly change their vibe if they want to keep people into their late 20s and beyond.
I’m on that age verge and I’ve tried a number of the sites mentioned above. While there are a number of my peers participating, there are just as many who are either inactive or altogether not involved. People recognize the limits of the superficial connections on the site, they are afraid of the privacy concerns and information they make available to potential employers, and frankly most people get to the point where the silly comments and popularity games are no longer rewarding.
Myspace has the feel of a high school cafeteria and all the games associated with that image. But we all grow up eventually.
Jim Kukral
Feb 27, 2006 at 1:42 am
Here’s why Myspace is going to fail in 3-years or less.
http://www.revenews.com/jimkukral/archives/001520.html
Brian Clark
Feb 27, 2006 at 12:15 pm
It’s all a progression that started with the BBS networks, followed by Usenet and the web. Now it’s blogs, MySpace, LiveJournal… Wen 2.0 is really just a precursor to an eventual true virtual reality (we’ll call this VR 0.4). :)
Let’s say in 2020, when you have a multimedia avatar (likely several, depending on the context), in place of once was first your nick, then your homepage, then your blog or MySpace page… And the kids in 2020 will snicker at the interactive vid feeds that discuss the primitive roots of “social media,” because at that point, media and society will have merged.
Yes, I read too much Neal Stephenson and William Gibson. But that’s the path we’re on, right? It helps me keep the evolutionary steps in proper perspective. Just baby steps.
tiffany
Mar 4, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Hmm… I’m not convinced. BlackPlanet.com was quite similar to MySpace in the late 90s. It went from being a spot for tech-savvy blacks to being a spot for everybody black. I mean, you’d go out to a party or a club and at some point “Do you have a BlackPlanet page?” came up.
Once it hit the tipping point of essentially being a free personals site, the dynamic changed. A lot of users dropped out or became inactive. There was a lot of porn, and porn-ish stuff. The forums had the same tired threads arguing about the same tired topics. So, yes, BlackPlanet is still around, and claims over 17 million members. Yet I don’t know too many folks who still use it. And it doesn’t have nearly the respect it once did.
Geoff Barnes
Mar 5, 2006 at 12:14 am
People were saying the same things about the Internet a decade ago. Myspace is a bigass community alright. But really, it’s not much more than a member-facing version of AOL. Don’t be afraid of it. Nothing more to fear from myspace than from the internet.
M
Mar 8, 2006 at 2:42 pm
No need to be scared. But I agree with you that many people will start slamming the site.
If they charged just $1 a month for membership, that would be a nice $61M a month if everyone signed up! Myspace has a huge growth potential. What single site has 61M membes. That’s insane.
PS - Some people have multiple profiles, but stil, it’s a boat load of people. Advertisers must love that. I hope it’s paying off for them.
Amanda
Mar 24, 2006 at 3:53 am
As a myspace blogger, I have to say - it’s a great way to garner readership and then move over into the blogosphere…if you hadn’t noticed, pointlessbanter has been hiring top ranked bloggers off myspace because myspacers will cross over to read their “friends” posts, regardless of where they appear…