I don't talk a lot about Myspace. I haven't held an account with Myspace since spring 2008. When I graduated high school in May 2007, I was reaching an end and starting a new beginning. Myspace seemed like a high school trend. I wanted new friends, a new network and a fresh start. Facebook soon after become the new social media must have. I deleted my Myspace account, along with my photos and my friends and created a Facebook account. I started a new life at a university, made new friends and took new photos. Facebook seemed like a more mature, organized, and user friendly way to network on the internet. Unfortunately for Myspace, this was the case for many users. Either users made a clean break like I did or slowly became less and less obsessed.
Today, I have very few friends who utilize Myspace. It seems to be a dying trend. so how is Myspace dealing with the retention of users? Are they going to turn things around?
As Myspace's president steps out, Co-Presidents Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones step up:
As Hirschhorn (pictured, right) describes it, MySpace’s trajectory moving forward is about the “pillars of broadcasting, discovery, self-expression, and making content a part of all those experiences.” He spoke to quality, usability and engineering as major focal points: “We want as many people here to be people who build, and who create, and who have top-notch engineering talent.”
Myspace is looking to go back to it's roots and figure out at what point strayed from it's goal. They believe it's not only about the content or only about the social networking, it's about both. It's about pop culture. it's about what's new, what's hot and what's not. it wants to be the center of pop culture news, music, etc.
So what about Facebook?
At Myspace, they don't see it as a "winner take all" scenario. They believe there is amply room for more than one dominating social networking site online. Think of Myspace as a phone service, like AT&T. There are many phone service networks in existence, more than a few dominate and thrive. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are just a few. People choose different services for different reasons. Myspace and Facebook are just two of those services. People will choose them for different reasons. They all co-exist and are successful.
Myspace plans on making user profile's more structured (like facebook) but still give them the freedom to customize their ow look. They will also add some new tools. Users will be able to follow stats on how many people view their profile, listen to their streams, watches their videos, etc. Users will also be able to earn badges. Further, Myspace will keep track of hot trends overall, the most popular music, videos, and topics. Like Facebook, Myspace will be able to recommend friends, music, etc. to users. Apps and games will also undergo future changes. According to Mashable.com:
Currently in testing now is a change to the former status update tool into an explicit publishing tool, allowing users to simply add videos, photos, links, and other types of content. Within the next month we should expect to see a new feature that allows cross-posting to sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg via a simple dropdown. “Why not? Publish once, go everywhere. If you increase publishing, you increase engagement,” said Hirschhorn of the upcoming feature.
Users should have to wait too much longer before see all these new changes. Myspace is taking swift action in improving the user experience.
I commend Myspace for staying strong. Although I dont plan on becoming a user of Myspace in the future, I recognize the changes they are making and the effort they are putting behind the site. I can see a possible comeback in the distant future. First you make changes, and then you have to pull your users back in.
so demise or survival for Myspace?
Survival
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