10 Reasons Facebook has MySpace’s Number
MySpace has long been the dominant social networking tool with a huge numbers of users, endless news stories surrounding it’s use as well as mis-use, and almost becoming a buzz word itself. Those days are eroding as MySpace loses it’s news coverage, and begins to become more of an annoyance then a benefit. Users are beginning to see enough reasons to move their online persona’s to other sites and Facebook has been working extremely hard and is poised to cut the head off the MySpace monster, and here are 10 reasons why:
- Clean UI Design
MySpace opened their UI to be changed by users using CSS and other code snippets into their profile pages, and thus opened the door to some of the most horrendous looking “spaces” anywhere. Facebook has maintained all their designs, and not opened themselves up to horrible design and keeping their site simple, elegant, and easy to use. - Clean UI Design…and no ability to change it
- Usability
One of the great things about Facebook when compared to MySpace is you can expect things to just work intuitively. Things act and react just as you would think they would. I know it seems pretty rudimentary, by often times MySpace tools fail for on reason or another without and valid explanation. The UI is much more straight forward which helps the users find and interact with the site more efficiently. - Reliability
I don’t know how many times I get random login errors on MySpace. I have tried for ages as well to check to see if the contacts from my GMail account are MySpace users using their built in tools and always get errors and no explanation. I have never had issues with either of these with Facebook. - No friend request spam
What nasty 16 year old tramp added me today? Yet another annoyance you don’t have to endure on Facebook. - …ability to add applications without dealing with HTML
The fact that Facebook can add functionality by just clicking a button makes MySpace’s adding HTML or code to your profile boxes seem about as efficient as shared hosting holding up to the “Digg” effect. - Portability (Mobile experience)
As better phones such as Apple’s IPhone are released and provide better mobile experiences this is going to become more and more important. Facebook is ahead in this department as well. - Willingness to Change
Facebook has shown the willingness to change and innovate when necessary. MySpace is usually far behind the curve if they ever get around to implementing features at all, and it’s really beginning to show. - Ability to pull together most or all of your online activities into one place
As users are getting more and more profiles online on different types of sites/applications, Facebook is making the move to allow you to incorporate all or most of that data into your Facebook profile. Bringing in your Photos, Music, Movies, Stocks, etc from other sites is something that is a great resource, and something that will be very important in the coming months/years. - No bi-weekly messages stating that we will not be shutting down, or telling how to block spam friend requests
All that needs to be said here is that Facebook is professional enough not to do this. In addition Facebook doesn’t have to tell you how to stop spam friend requests because they really don’t happen.By the way, doesn’t everyone love Tom and his photo of himself in a mirror?
11. That’s where my friends are.
People will go where their friends are. It’s simple as that. All of those point assist Facebook in sucking less. And possibly a platform to be reckoned with.
Facebook will be an interesting site/platform/whatever they evolve become to watch and see where they are able to take it.
By peroty on June 11, 2007 1:46 pm
Are users really leaving myspace for facebook?
I think it’s a totally diffrent product for a diffrent type of user… I don’t think comparing them makes any sense.
By Tomer on June 11, 2007 3:15 pm
Nice article. I’m not a member of either system, but will probably break down and join Facebook soon. I have no interest at the moment in joining MySpace however ;)
I do have to point out one typo, (no offense intended, I would do this to anybody). The phrase “begins to become more of an annoyance then a benefit” should read “begins to become more of an annoyance than a benefit.” “Then” means, roughly, “comes after,” as in “I went to the bathroom then washed my hands” “than” is the word that I believe you’re looking for to indicate opposition.
Keep up the great work!
By John B on June 11, 2007 4:38 pm
I agree with Tomer when he says that comparing really doesn’t make much sense. I mean, I posted a blog entry about this subject last week, but since then I’ve realized that people are going to go where they have the most friends.
I believe that MySpace allows users to make their profile theirs with the HTML and CSS you are able to put into it; even though this can cause bad-looking layouts, I still think it’s better than having everybody’s profiles looking pretty much the exact same.
It’s your profile, so you should be able to actually make it yours.
By Cody Fisher on June 12, 2007 3:18 pm
@peroty - This is true to a point. There is a point though that user will make up their minds that one is better then the other.
@Cody & Tomer - I have to disagree. These sites are very similar and thus why they are compared all the time. The fact that a user can color their own space I don’t think is important as you might think.
I do believe that their is a rash of users moving from one to the other for several of the reason’s mentioned above. They may not understand those things on a level that we do, but those tend to be the reasons.
By Kyle on June 12, 2007 4:59 pm
Friend request spam is my biggest issue with MySpace. I no longer look forward to the emails I receive from them. Those emails are destroying their brand.
By Ed Kohler on June 16, 2007 1:05 pm
how do you get on myspace with a computer that will not let you
By brittanyt on June 24, 2007 4:12 pm
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By pvwqzovpzo on June 24, 2007 7:18 pm
Really cool upload, I think its the most descriptive comparison made till now.
Cheers
Beyondwww
By beyondwww on June 27, 2007 3:34 am
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By MySpace Party: MySpaceTV, Facebook or MySpace, Ultimate MySpace Layout, MySpace vs Facebook on June 28, 2007 10:11 am
My reasons for liking facebook WAY WAY WAY more:
1. With facebook, I am immune to people posting GIANT ANNOYING PICTURES on my wall.
2. I don’t have to deal with myspace people’s annoying music blasting on my face everytime I visit someone’s page.
3. The tag feature is really neat on facebook. Most of my friends literally have atleast 100-200 pictures while on myspace i only view 5-10 pictures (mostly taken by yourself) looking like a whore.
4. People ,who are obviously not trained in using simple html codes, code their websites completely messed up and I can barely even looking for your personal information. Your scroll bars end up being ENORMOUS and sometimes it hurts my eyes to look at your pages.
By Joey on July 1, 2007 12:47 am
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