MySpace

Could Twitter Get “MySpaced”?

By Mark Evans in Social Media 14 Comments Tags: , , , ,

As difficult as it might be to believe, it was not that long ago that MySpace dominated the social networking market, and made Facebook look like a pipsqueak. MySpace ruled the roost in such a major way that Rupert Murdoch spent nearly $600-million to make it part of his News Corp. empire. Now, MySpace is evaporating before our eyes while Facebook is battling Google for digital dominance.

…which brings us to Twitter, which dominates the micro-blogging world after vanquishing wannabes such as Jaiku and Pownce. Right now, there is no competition to Twitter – not even a weak and feeble MySpace. Instead, Twitter dominates while micro-blogging startups such as Yammer happily operate in the enterprise market.

Even so, there is growing speculation Twitter is about to face new and serious competition. The biggest threat appears to be Bill Gross’ UberMedia, which already has a strong foothold with a portfolio of Twitter applications.

According to CNN, Gross is considering a new, user-friendly service. The service would differentiate itself based on ease-of-use, and allow users to post messages longer than 140 characters.

As well, a group of developers disgruntled about how Twitter changed its API rules have launched rstatus.us, which is billing itself on two concepts: simplicity and openness.

Meanwhile, Twitter continues to search for a business model and ways to better connect and serve its users – something highlighted by GigaOm recently. When there was no threat of competition, Twitter could afford to struggle, knowing that even if it made mistakes, there was no one to capitalize on them.

But now, the landscape seems to be changing. As a result, Twitter no longer seems as impenetrable. While there’s still not a major rival on the horizon, something seems to be different.

The question is whether a new service could challenge Twitter, let alone do what Facebook did to MySpace. Does Twitter have such a dominant hold on the marketplace that it would be very difficult for a new player to make a serious charge?

My take is “no”.

As much as people love Twitter, social media users are fickle, disloyal at the drop of a hat and always looking for the next new and shiny object. If something better, different and more interesting than Twitter came along, it wouldn’t take much for it to attract a lot of attention.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect the masses to abandon Twitter but if Bill Gross can come up with a new and compelling service, anything could happen. It would be a challenge because the barriers to entry are extremely high. One false move, and you’ve got a Color.com, RockMelt or Flock on your hands.

But if you could hit one out of the park right away, watch out. In theory, all you’d need are breathless reviews from a Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Mike Arrington and Walter Mossberg for a service to go from zero to 60 miles an hour. Once the cool kids deem something to be wonderful, the masses could jump on board hard and fast.

If I were Twitter and its investors, I’d be nervous. The world is good now but there are competitive rumblings. They may not be loud but they exist – something we haven’t heard in a while.

More: For some other coverage about Twitter, check out this TechCrunch story looking at the-sky-is-falling story that appeared in Fortune Magazine.

Could Facebook Become MySpace One Day?

By Mark Evans in Social Media No Comments Tags: , ,

If there’s anything constant on the Web, it’s change.

New technologies emerge, new services are developed, people use the Web in different ways, and companies come and go, even those with strong brands and lots of users. Who could have imagined a few years ago that MySpace would become a second-class social network, or that Digg would become irrelevant, or that AOL would no longer be a dominant online player.

And despite Facebook’s dominance, the fact of the matter is it is as vulnerable to change as any online service. Sure, Facebook seems so embedded, it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine it not being omnipotent but as quickly as some services jump into the spotlight, they can disappear.

One of Facebook’s biggest dangers could be its emergence as a corporate marketing platform. As more companies establish Facebook Pages, Facebook is, in some respects, moving away from its social network roots. Facebook Pages aren’t really social networks but marketing vehicles that let consumers have some sort of engagement. As much as brands want to think of themselves as social, can anyone really be social with a company or a brand.

Another reality is how people want to use the Web changes. While Facebook is seen as a way to stay in touch with and communicate with friends and family, there will be new players that may resonate with consumers in different and better ways. It could be that people get tired of Facebook after spending so much time with it.

This may explain why Facebook is pushing so aggressively into new areas such as phone service, wireless and location-based services because it believes that its users need new, shiny toys to stay engaged. The worst thing Facebook could do is become fat and happy. The risk, however, is that Facebook attempts to become so many things to so many people is it becomes confusing, cluttered and unfocused.

You may be saying to yourself that Facebook is too large to lose its position as the top dog. That may be true but nothing is guaranteed online.

Facebook May Be Evil But….

By Mark Evans in Social Media 9 Comments Tags: , , , ,

Since introducing the privacy-killing Graph API recently, Facebook has been under the gun. In addition to the concerns about its disdain for privacy, there’s also been growing chatter about people leaving the social networking service, as well as suggestions that MySpace or start-ups (Diaspora, anyone?) may have discovered a chink in Facebook’s armour.

But as Business Insider makes clear, the harsh reality is Facebook isn’t going anywhere. The company is too big, too aggressive and far too popular to see it pull a Friendster (and everyone remembers how Friendster was the king of the social networking world at one time, right?).

Facebook may be the elephant in the room but it’s a gigantic elephant. As much as the digital elite may be wailing away at Facebook’s hubris and that of its youthful CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, most Facebook users get far too much value and utility from Facebook to consider using something else.

It’s like shopping at Wal-Mart, and then being told you need to find another retailer because Wal-Mart buys products from Chinese factories that pay their workers $1/hour. It be unfair and wrong but consumers have a habit of ignoring the facts if it means have to change their behaviour.

At the end of the day, Facebook will probably get its act together by appeasing the privacy advocates with some policy changes. It will be a classic two steps forward, one step back strategic move. This will still let Facebook make its data more available, while allowing the privacy people to claim victory over Goliath.

If you’re concerned about Facebook but don’t want to delete your account, consider the following:

1. Spend some time looking at your privacy settings, particularly the “Applications and Web Sites” section, which includes the innocuous sounding “Instant Personalization Pilot Program”.

This program lets Web sites such as CNN.com and Yelp.com personalize their sites based on your Facebook information. If this is something you don’t want, click on “Edit Setting” and uncheck the box at the bottom of the page.

2. Be careful about the information within your profile – things like your birthday, location and interests. Facebook now has the ability to pull this data so it can be used to let advertisers target you better. As well, it’s used for the “Instant Personalization Pilot Program”.

3. Since Facebook is becoming more of a public place, think about your updates, Wall posts and the links, photos and videos being shared. More of this information is being indexed by search engines as opposed to being just for family and friends. This mean what you say on Facebook doesn’t necessarily stay on Facebook.

More: Mashable’s Ben Parr as a column “In Defense of Facebook” that suggests the flack Facebook is attracting for its privacy policies is misguided because it’s really up to users to protect their own privacy.

MySpace Finally Climbs on Twitter Bandwagon

By Mark Evans in Social Media 1 Comment Tags: , ,

MySpace is still alive and kicking, although a sharp decline in traffic over the past two months is not a good sign.

As MySpace scrambles to reinvent itself, it has finally decided to climb on the Twitter bandwagon by letting its users send updates to Twitter, as well being able to update their MySpace status from Twitter.

The question is should anyone care and, for that matter, will MySpace users care? In the scheme of things, you have to wonder how much Twitter by the MySpace crowd? My take is there’s little overlap, and that MySpace’s embrace of Twitter is more show than anything significant.

When it comes down to it, MySpace has evolved into a place where people find and listen to music. It’s not a Twitter or blogging crowd so no reason that today’s announcement should excited anyone.

For more thoughts, check out TechCrunch.

Can MySpace Find Its Mojo?

By Mark Evans in Social Media No Comments Tags: , ,

It has not been a good year for MySpace.

It’s bad enough that MySpace is now playing second fiddle to Facebook, and that no one really talks much about MySpace when it comes to interesting social media services. Now, the company is going through a restructuring as the new management team scrambles to re-invent itself.

CNet reports the latest development is a decision to slash the number of employees by 30% to return to a “start-up culture” – something that might be a challenge when you have 1,000 employees.

MySpace is a long way from the days when Rupert Murdoch was being hailed as a genius for snapping up the company for $580-million, and it was attracting advertisers such as Google, which signed a three-year, $1-billion deal in 2006.

While MySpace still had 55 million unique visitors in the U.S last month, it seems like a niche service – a place catering to music fans. MySpace is clearly troubled by decline in traffic this year so the senior executive changes and the restructuring appear to be the tip of the strategic iceberg.


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