The launch of the new MySpace, just a few short months ago, does not seem to be saving the network’s declining traffic and revenue streams. Nor is it going to save MySpace from the News Corp. chopping board.

This week, MySpace laid off 500 of it’s employees, across the board – amounting to an astonishing 47% of it’s total staff base.

At the time, Mike Jones, CEO, stated that the decision had nothing to do with their new product, ““Today’s tough but necessary changes were taken in order to provide the company with a clear path for sustained growth and profitability,” Jones said of MySpace’s recent re-vamp. “These changes were purely driven by issues related to our legacy business, and in no way reflect the performance of the new product.” CNET

However, just a few days later, Jones confirmed that News Corp. is looking for a way to off-load the failing project. Many rumors had been flying around, that the parent company was looking for a buyer for MySpace, and it is very sad to discover, that some of them were true.

Spokesperson for MySpace, Rosabel Toa, revealed to Bloomberg just recently, that “News Corp. is assessing a number of possibilities including a sale, a merger and a spinout….. The process has just started.”

I consider MySpace’s shift in focus last year, to be a very brave attempt at saving their bacon, however, it might have been the thing that killed it for them.

Listening to the forums, it seems like the general public is not all that sorry to see MySpace go down this path – which, for me at least, indicates just how much popularity MySpace is losing.

I wonder who is brave enough to invest in MySpace now? Once acquired, will the face and shape of MySpace change yet again? Or will it be dissolved into a new & exciting venture by some big player out there? Only time will tell.

Looking at the new layout for MySpace.com, I can’t say that the content or look of the site has appealed to me much, however, I suppose that this is because I haven’t been a teenager for quite a number of years now.

Through a youngsters eyes, the revamped MySpace is a place where you can get the latest & hottest news on pretty much anything going on in the entertainment industry. The design of the social site is quite simple, and offers a variety of different themes to users who wish to spice up their MySpace experiences.

The content is all about the latest going’s on in entertainment. MySpace users can share and discover news on the latest movies, music videos, events, celebrity gossip and as well spend hours and hours playing online games with each other.

Some of the new features enable MySpace users to:

• Connect with other MySpace users who share similar interests;
• Create & display their creations on their profiles as well as share them using the tools available to them;
• Enjoy MySpace’s content as well as content from around the web;
• To simplify, as well as enhance their social entertainment experience. Users can choose to use MySpace in the traditional grid-view – which is much a magazine layout, the traditional list-view, or, they can choose play view and watch their content, share it, forward and re-size their updates;
• Personalise their newsfeeds according to their tastes and interests and more;

As someone, who has a teenage sibling, I know that what I have described above, is a much favoured pastime amongst this age group.

So I really do think that MySpace has the makings of something great here, if they can pull it off. Facebook is playing in a different field now, so MySpace can safely market itself to Generation Y and re-establish itself as an online social media & entertainment hub.

In September 2005, one month after Thefacebook changed it’s name to simply Facebook, it allowed students from high schools in the US to join. It finally crossed the Atlantic a month later, when universities in the UK were added.

In September 2006, Facebook went global when they allowed anyone with an e-mail address over the age of thirteen to join the site. From there, the number of people with Facebook accounts just kept on climbing.

By April 2007, there were 20 million active users on Facebook. This number climbed to over 100 million in August 2008, and has recently passed the 500 million mark less than two years later.

But what has made Facebook so popular? What makes it so different from all the other social networking sites that have begun over the years? After doing some research on the subject, I have narrowed it down to a few important points.

• Pre-existing communityFacebook was first marketed to a pre-existing community. One of the reasons Mark Zuckerburg created the site was because Harvard didn’t have an online student directory, and so he found a niche waiting to be filled. This meant that Facebook already had thousands of people in one group who would use the site.

• Desirability and unattainability In the beginning, Facebook was only available for college students. There is a well known, and very true saying that you want what you can’t have, and so the fact that most people in America couldn’t join the site, made them want to join even more. In fact, there were even high school students who based their decisions on what college they wanted to go to, on whether or not they would have access to Facebook! This meant that once Facebook opened for everyone, people who weren’t previously able to join had already heard of the site, and already wanted to become members.

• Trust Having a site created by a fellow student made Harvard undergraduates more confidant to use it. Zuckerburg had also already created a name for himself among the Harvard student with his previous sites, and because of their popularity, once Facebook came out, the students were quick to hop on the bandwagon. This meant that Facebook had a jump start on other social networking sites, as it already had people willing to join from the beginning.

  Harvard also holds some measure of trust in the US, as do the other Ivy League Schools that were first given access to the site after Harvard. The result was that Facebook gained a level of trust among the public because of the relationship between it and these universities.

• Ease of sign up Most other sites like this require a unique username. This means when you sign up, you need to try out different combinations to find a username that no one else has, but that you also like, and that means something to you. This is all very well when just a few people sign up, but once it gets to the millions, it becomes very difficult. You find yourself adding random digits to the end of your name to try and make it unique, and now not only do you need to remember your password, but your username as well!

  Facebook changed all that. You don’t need any sort of username, all you need to do is to use your actual name. This makes it far easier to sign up, and so there won’t be anyone put off in the first few minutes of interacting with the site from the frustration of having to find a username.

Many Social networking sites are created and then die out because not enough people sign up for them. Facebook started with the perfect combination of factors to make it the internet giant that it is today.

On 28 October 2003, while trying to distract himself from the fact that he had just been dumped, Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerburg, created a type of “Hot or Not” website for Harvard Students which he named Facemash. The site showed two random pictures of Harvard undergraduates, and allowed users to vote on who was better looking. Harvard quickly shut down the site, and it emerged that Zuckerburg had hacked into secure parts of the Harvard computer network in order to find these photos. He was subject to a disciplinary hearing, and narrowly managed to escape expulsion.

(more…)

The two main founders of MySpace, Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolf, met while working at the free online storage company, Xdrive, in 1999.

Once Xdrive closed due to bankruptcy, the two decided to create their own company, and started selling e-mail addresses to companies. However, this became a problem with California’s tightening anti spam laws, and in 2002 their company, Responsebase, was bought by Intermix Media (previously known as eUniverse).

In July 2003, Thomas Anderson looked at the social networking site Friendster, and thought that Intermix Media could create a better site. With the help of Chris DeWolf and a few other Intermix employees, MySpace was created just ten days later, using the domain name that Anderson and DeWolf already owned.

(more…)

If you ask anybody which Social Networking Sites they use, the majority of people will say Facebook, and others may include Twitter. But just how long have Social Networking sites been a part of the web and our lives? We look back to what was possibly the first Social Networking site – SixDegrees.com, which was founded in 1997, and the many Social Networking sites that have popped up over the years since. Some have died along the way, others have just plodded along and others have thrived.

Social Networking sites, especially within the South African context, have only really taken root in our conciousness and conversations over the past few years. I recall when MySpace was the place, you had to have a MySpace account. Then came along this vanilla style, white & blue site called Facebook!  This simple looking site has taken the world by storm. Much like the Microsoft of the 80′s and the Google of the earlier millennium, this site is the juggernaught of  Social Networking sites, albeit with it’s fair share of controversy.

Social Networking Sites Timeline

As you can see, 2003 was when Social Networking started to gain “collective” consciousness and momentum. Sites like SixDegrees.com and Friendster were important players, and the likes of Facebook learned from their failings to gain worldwide popularity.

We are going to profile some of these Social Networking Sites over the next month, some of the more important sites that shaped the Social Networking space. So please stay tuned for more.