MySpace Settling in As a Standard
Visit the MySpace homepage of any teenager in or with access to, western culture, and you will surely find it as “decorated” as said teenager’s own bedroom. As much as Facebook tries to tout itself as the next big thing, it appears MySpace is hanging in there for the long haul. Some naysayers protest MySpace is just about music, and that it, like many other Internet trends before it, will soon go the way of AOL chat. MySpace will inevitably find itself obsolete, they will have you believe.
In a June 3, 2009, report in Media Week, Mike Shields bears some good news for die-hard MySpacers. According to Habbo, one of the most rapidly-growing social networking sites currently climbing the web, Facebook only ranks third, behind MySpace and YouTube, amongst American teenagers surveyed. Teenagers in the United States made up about one-quarter to one-third of those surveyed. The statistics are slightly different from a global standpoint, with Myspace coming in fourth place behind YouTube in first place and Facebook ranking second among international teens.
Facebook will just have to take a lesser place smiling, if the report by the Finnish company Habbo is correct. Even in this age of technological advancements that change by the hour, sometimes the old standards die hard. Now that the Internet has seen many birthdays come and go, it is getting old enough to have the honor of begetting its own time-honored standards. Who would have ever imagined?
MySpace was the front-runner for quite some time, even going so far as to have mobile applications for different types of smart phones. Never to be outdone on the technology front, Facebook was never more than a few steps behind. Teenagers, however, also put high value on aesthetics, and in that arena, Facebook simply cannot add up. This alone could be enough to promote MySpace to the forefront for teen users for the United States. MySpace allows its user to “decorate” their page with whatever they can possibly imagine, in the way of background art, and color schemes, not to mention customized music, videos, message boards, and hordes of other features. Some of those features are available as apps, short for applications, or user-designed programs to be downloaded for use on the MySpace site. These applications are not merely for aesthetic purposes, however. Their functions run the gambit of the capabilities of what is basically a hand-held mini-computer.
Aesthetics aside, the main draw for the kids is the media aspect. MySpace allows fans to get as close and personal with very willing stars as ever before. Stars are able to connect more directly and productively with their fans. While Facebook appears to be cornering the market on semi- to professional networking, MySpace ostensibly will reign supreme with the teen set, at least while it is still able to attract big-name musicians and other media titans for collaborative efforts. The technology may change. The venues may change. The rules are pretty much the same. As long as MySpace can still get the big names to come play, they will always draw the biggest crowd.
Trina L. Grant is a social networking blogger. She is the owner of Professional Freelance Writing & Editing Services.
Image by karpov the wrecked train
Posted in Social Networking. Tags: myspace
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