Comments on: 3 Reasons Why MySpace Will Fail In Rebranding

By: Vasya Bricklyn

Vasya Bricklyn — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:48:28 +0000

I agree with you, although for different reasons. MySpace parrallels what happened with Geocities- and overinflated acquisition valued not for what it was worth, but based on the idea that it would keep growing. Fox ate crow on MySpace- Google's 900M ad deal made this POS excuse of a social network appear to be “worth” 560M in 2006- and they failed to meet that ad revenue target. Secondly, in their haeyday they had 1400 employees. What did these people do all day long? They did nothing to address security (That phony RNYSPACE login page was around for years), they had no respect for their users- and worse- the thing that made myspace so cool- indie bands- abandoned them when there focus changed to embracing the recording companies. This is truly the irony- Indie acts used MySpace to undermine the big recording companies- who are failing, and MySpace turns around and betrays these acts. Even the bands are leaving MySpace in droves- many are just sick of the spam, the third party hijacking of their comments, and having to deal with that hideous 1990's era layout. Let's face it- not one of their employees – past or present (and they have been going through many senior ones) had a clue how to sustain this thing. Same deal with Geocities. That core base of users are gone. The fanzine people are gone. The middle aged woman who turned it into a datefishing/tits and ass website are gone (now they play “Cougar Country” on Facebook), too.

It's future will be decided by it's marketing value. Google sure isn't going to give it another lofty marketing contract. Not too many want to invest into a sinking ship that has a bad PR image- or have an ad up on a profile that reflects poorly on a business. Given that around 2001, Geocities was already sinking in the wake of no competition, I expect this sorry excuse of a social network to sink even faster.

By: Forrest W. Kobayashi

Forrest W. Kobayashi — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:21:17 +0000

Thanks for leaving a comment here Nate. You wouldn't adopt MySpace if it came back completely redesigned? It could potentially put you ahead of the curve if the website does make somewhat of a miracle comeback.

By: Forrest W. Kobayashi

Forrest W. Kobayashi — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 03:21:17 +0000

By: nateriggs

nateriggs — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:59:58 +0000

Really great insights Forrest, and I agree. If MySpace is to survive for the long term, a re-brand is needed, but the focus should take MySpace back to its roots in music, film and art promotion. Essentially, MySpace needs to revert back to it's natural niche.

You bring up an interesting point on design. MySpace was always rooted in a user-customized experience, which in turn created massive problems in usability. It's a tough network to navigate. Facebook realized the implications of this early on and created usability standards, i.e. one Facebook profile is organized the same as all the others. Fan pages are organized like other fan pages. The "system" was intuitive which fostered wide adoption.

Twitter was designed as a completely different system, and I would argue that Twitter as a tool didn't become "niche" until the launch of lists.

At any rate, MySpace is just not on radar for me any more, but then again, I live in the city where all of my friends are on Facebook. Your physical location seems to effect your level of technology adoption...

Keep 'em coming dude. Good stuff.