MySpace Business Lesson: Communication
There have only been a handful of killer applications for the Internet (not definitive of course):
- IRC
- BBS
- Usenet
- Instant Messenger
- MySpace
Maybe you don’t consider Myspace a killer application, but you do have to consider it as a killer-something. In any case all of these apps have one thing in common and that’s their ability to help users communicate. Communication has and will always be the killer feature of the Internet and arguably any period of time. Anything that makes communication between individuals easier will most likely become a success.
So as a business what can you learn from Myspace and how it allows people to communicate with each other? Let’s have a look at some things.
Asynchoronous Communication
This is what Myspace is based around. You can leave comments on a user’s profile page or send them messages that they can check in their inbox. It’s really no different than an email, except for one thing. With email there is a sense that you have to respond to the individual and uninvited emails hit our inbox everyday. With Myspace only the Friends you approve can send leave comments and there is no need to respond, but I guess it would be the cool and polite thing to do.
Note: You may wonder how a site like Myspace gets so many pageviews and once you play around with it you can easily see one of the reasons is that they force you back onto their site if you wish to see private messages or comments sent to you. Annoying, yet brilliant at the same time.
As a company does this mean you should open up a way for your customers to communicate with you? Well hopefully you have some form of contact on your site so that they can at least email and if you have a blog maybe taking the Myspace approach to “friends” could work wonders. I don’t think every company should open up comments to the world, but doing so to a select group would help both the company and the customers out in the long run.
Planting the seeds to community growth
If you are looking at building the “next great thing” think about how you can make it easier for your users to communicate with each other. You think online games such as World of Warcraft are popular because people like to feel alone? Sure in the end every successful online game or social application look as though its success is based around the community, but if those first people aren’t able to effetively communicate then you will not have a community to promote.
The current 9rules model would not work if there weren’t forums in place to help members communicate amongst each other, but even that isn’t good enough. Next we created an IRC Chat to help communication between not only members, but readers as well. Even that isn’t enough and in the next phase of 9rules you will see a more effective model of communication between our readers and members, which in turn should allow for a more thriving public online community.
The Addiction
There are a lot of reasons why Myspace is popular and a great thing about it is the people that I have been able to connect with from years past. Never would I have thought I would be able to say what’s up to some of these people and because of Myspace and it’s asynchronous communication methods, people aren’t ashamed to drop a line because it’s much easier talking online than it is face-to-face for some reason.
It’s funny you mention World of Warcraft and communication. There are times when I just login to see if my friends are in there and chat with them in game as opposed to picking up the phone.
I’ve never really sat down to ask myself why the hell I do that, but…
Anyway, I’m not huge into MySpace and I always wondered why it’s so huge (I’ve got LOTS of friends who practically obsess over it) given it’s myriad of problems.
I guess it’s hard seeing past its problems and knowing so many ways it could be better. Now having used it a bit, and looked at it as a customer as opposed to a designer who could help make it better, I think I understand it a bit better.
It’s quite obvious that it’s benefits and what it has to offer far outweigh it’s problems. Still, I can’t help but wonder how much better it could be…
By Keith on April 18, 2006 2:21 pm
That’s the thing though, like a videogame it has an addiction that people don’t readily see. It feels good to get friend requests, it feels good to see new comments and messages. If you don’t get it, maybe you understand checking your stats every 60 seconds after getting posted on Digg or something like that.
It is amazing though how so many people I know and hangout with have replaced IM and email with Myspace as their main communication tool.
By Scrivs on April 18, 2006 3:44 pm
I agree with Keith with the “how much better it could be” sentiment. It does feel good to get comments and freind requests but every other week something is broken or down or just ugh and it could be so much easier.
I understand why it’s popular… I just don’t understand why they have no desire to be MORE popular. I can’t think of any real reason not to clean up the profile template, add an “advanced” profile editor that lets those that care insert css styles right into the header (or link to their own external stylesheet), and streamline the whole thing so it’s easier to find people that share interests, harder to find faults and so that you don’t have to wait 45 seconds+ for the homepage to load.
The people that use and and don’t care will continue to use it, the ones that use and do care will become loyal for life and it will attract new users who were completely turned off before.
Or am I missing something important?
By sunshine on April 20, 2006 12:17 am
I was impressed by two sentences:
“Anything that makes communication between individuals easier will most likely become a success.”, and “…people aren’t ashamed to drop a line because it’s much easier talking online than it is face-to-face for some reason.”
Is “easier” necessarily a good thing? As you point out, it certainly is appealing. But, as Keith points out, he sometimes prefers to just chat online, rather than pick up the phone.
Most of the comments I read in websites are not very profound, rather trivial actually, and certainly limited in their interactiveness; after all, it’s only text. I find face-to-face interaction ever so much more rich; when I can see a person’s face, or at least, hear their voice, and respond immediately.
By Steve on April 20, 2006 10:27 am
To clarify that, it seems that people are more interested in feeling connected, rather than in actually communicating anything significant.
By Steve on April 20, 2006 10:38 am
Am I the only one feeling you left out Skype in your list? That’s pretty effective and easy communication.
By Jonathan Holst on April 22, 2006 8:09 am
I think its easier to communicate on internet. and all your applications have the ability to help users communicate. Communication will always be the killer feature on the net avd why not its easier to communicate. But some people still like face to face communication a better way to interact. So its the matter of personal choice. But they cant deny the importance of online interaction.
By danny on April 26, 2006 3:36 am