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THE CASE FOR FACEBOOK
MySpace and Facebook share many of the same working parts – user profiles, events, groups, photo uploads, public comment spaces, instant messenging systems, classifieds… and the list goes on. Yet once the two sites get all dressed up, the difference is clear. Facebook is runway ready, while MySpace is, well, a fashion disaster. In fact, I’ve heard it said that MySpace is really just Facebook for bogans (okay, so maybe it was me that I heard saying it, but the point remains).
Opening the two sites side by side, Facebook immediately comes across as the more attractive site, with a clean design that speaks to the thought and talent of its designers. MySpace on the other hand is chaotic and clashing. At best, MySpace profiles seem an artistic mess, at worst, they are nothing but web spew, pure HTML bile.
To understand some of the key differences between the sites, let’s journey (cue flashback music) to their respective origins.
Facebook started when Mark Zuckerberg, then a student at Harvard University, devised a closed online social network for students at the university. What began as a handy procrastination tool quickly spread to other American universities, high schools and work places before eventually opening to the general public.
With all its expansion, however, one thing has sustained Facebook as the online network of choice – its integrity. Despite interest from such world-wide web heavyweights as google and offers rumoured to be in the billions, Mark Zuckerberg has refused to sell, keeping Facebook independent, save Microsoft’s 1.6% share in the company.
However, for those of you heralding MySpace as a haven of indy musicians and artists, let me gatecrash your party like the police at a Corey Delaney gathering. As soon as MySpace grew large enough to be a valuable business, its founders sold the site to Rupert Murdoch and his media empire News Corp. In short, while Facebook remains the creative property of its original developers, MySpace lies in the hands not of thumbs-up Tom, but of big business.
Should it come as any surprise then that MySpace takes less pride in its appearance, leaving its users to layout and program individual pages, while Facebook is carefully crafted by the professionals who first created it? What’s that I hear you say, MySpace is for the creative soul that doesn’t fit into the rigid box of someone else’s design? Well, keep in mind that what MySpace allows in creativity, it also allows in spam (and not the good, comes in a can, perfect in a sandwich kind) and messy, useless content.
So, perhaps, oh creative, free-lovin’ web soul, you should think of web design and programming like sex – very few people are good at it their first time. It can take a lot of practice to get something that not only feels right, but looks good. While amateurs may like the creative control of programming their own site, the fact is they are far from www dot porn stars. So, unless you plan on getting a bit of practice on a few other sites, leave your social network profile to someone more… experienced.
Perhaps, though, the greatest argument for Facebook is its phenomenal growth following its recent innovations on social networking. Prior to opening up to society at large, Facebook had just a fraction of MySpace’s market share. However, when it launched its Facebook Platform last year, allowing outside programmers to create applications that users could add to their profile, Facebook revolutionized the online social networking world. Its growth was triple digit explosive and it soon eclipsed MySpace as the #1 social networking site (according to comScore, an internet market research company) with an estimated 80 million active users worldwide.
Facebook’s rapid rise even has MySpace rethinking its image. This June MySpace redesigned its new home page and launched – wait for it – applications. The exact same applications that were first launched as part of the Facebook Platform. How’s that for MySpace-style creativity? Imitation it seems is the sincerest form of flattery.
But clichés aside, the fact remains, it was Facebook that first gave the world Scrabulous, Superpoke and Catholic School Girl Vampires. And it is Facebook that remains the world’s best social networking site.
Facebook user #3888 – Megan Smith
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GET OUT OF MyFace!
In a culture where the individual reigns supreme – and consequently, the individual’s freedom to express said individuality – MySpace encourages a proliferation of spaces honed, tweaked, designed and decorated to express the individual’s individuality. Yes, it may lead to a mass of web spew and shoddily designed pages, but at least the individual has the right to try. Facebook, on the other hand, encourages a heterogeneity of appearance, a same sameness. Royal blue rhymes with ‘poo’, and Facebook just loves to overdo the royal blue.
But seriously, what kind of a social networking site has a group called ‘We Demand Colour Profiles on Facebook’? Is it good to be so controlling as to encourage subversive action within your own ruling system? With its tight reign on the individual, it’s super silo of personal information (which it undoubtedly sells off to the PR companies, the government, the secret government… or even the aliens), Facebook comes off as a rather shady secret keeper. Even its heritage as originally being a site specifically for Ivy Leaguers smacks of secret society clandestine elitism. At least MySpace has already sold out, and who better to sell out to than Rupert Murdoch. By selling out MySpace maintains a cultural path of integrity, just like Victoria Beckham, Heather Mills and Madonna, all of whom have also sold out and all of whom are apparently really nice people and very likeable. Or so I’ve heard.
But back to the poo fight. Yes… poo fight. Who in their right mind would have an application called ‘poo fight’ available on their social networking site? Such a dubious application not only suggests Facebook loves a bit of scat, but that it also hosts a bevy of ‘crapplications’. And the majority of these applications are just that – crap. And if you want to argue that MySpace has crapplications too, then stop it. Devil’s advocate just ain’t your colour.
Music. It makes you lose control. It makes the people come together. It makes the bourgeoisie. And the rebel. It also makes MySpace the ultimate social networking music portal. How many stories have you heard of unsigned bands being picked up by record labels after they were ‘found’ on MySpace? Loads. Crystal Castles are the penultimate MySpace band and they’re bigger than Oprah. And Oprah’s big. Really big. Like phat – with a ‘ph’. Which makes it cool. Like MySpace. Hell, you can even plug a mic into your laptop, use Microsoft Voice Recorder and make a mash-up electro voco mix, give yourself a cool name and post it on MySpace as MySpace Music. And guess what? You’ve not only made a band but look… you just got signed to a major label too! Can you do that on Facebook? Oh wait… what’s that? Yeah – nothing. Nada. Zip. Silence. Yes… there is no music on Facebook.
MySpace has more urban folklore attached to it than Facebook. True! Not only with the number of bands signed from it, nor the amount of creative talent generated through competitions like V-Raw or those found and amassed by hubs such as Litmusphere, but MySpace knows how to party too. Look at Corey Delaney nee Worthington’s infamous MySpace-invite house party. Ok, so Facebook has created the new UK phenomenon ‘dipping’ where kids use GoogleEarth to find pools and then hold impromptu pool parties there. But seriously – pool parties? In England? Do you know how cold it is there? Are those kids on crack? Yes… Facebook kids do crack. Another point to MySpace.
MySpace has two capital letters in its name. Facebook only has one. Sometimes none. CamelCase, aka capitals in the middle of words, is cool and scores more points. Ergo, point to MySpace. No, scrap that – ten points to MySpace – capitalism is so now! Eat that Facebook.
It goes on. No really, this rant goes on. No matter what you throw in my face all I gotta do is form an ‘X’ in front of me and go ‘no deal’. Or ‘blocked’. Like I’ve blocked you on MySpace. Yeah… check your settings Facer. Bring it! Bring on the big business. Bring on the sell outs. Bring on the music. Bring on the crack-plications. I’m just gonna go and post another couple pics of me and my bbfs kicking wild style at the party we SpaceCrashed on the weekend. And omfg, no… they didn’t have a pool. Lame!
Scott-Patrick Mitchell (myspace.com/scottpatrickmitchell – can’t do that on Facebook can ya! Huh? No… you can’t.)
