The rambling shambling social networking funhouse that is MySpace
Everyone I know talks about MySpace. It’s still very much the predominant social networking powerhouse on the planet, with mega millions of people friending and flirting and comment-leaving and social networking away.
As MySpace has expanded it has gone to great lengths to add lots of features and improve its notoriously wonky UI, all in an effort to hold its teeming audience, keep people clicking around the site, and of course make as much money as possible in the process.
Most people I know who talk about MySpace don’t use it very much. I know I don’t except to check out an occasional e-mail or out of professional curiosity.
So I thought it might be interesting to take a look at this modern phenomenon with new eyes. It really is a rambling shambling funhouse of strange alleyways, bizarre discoveries, and lots of thrift store junk not worth anyone’s time. You can, if so desired, get lost for many hours simply trying to get some small sense of what’s going on.
Here are some of my findings:
* MySpace Movies
MySpace has gone a long way in improving the design and features of its content channels. Whereas at one time its “top level channels” were nothing more than collections of featured profile pages, there’s a lot of use of the word “exclusive” going on now. MySpace Trailer Park presents an exclusive HD trailer of something called august, for instance. There’s also exclusive clips from the new Sex and the City movie, exclusive interviews with John Cusack, and an exclusive Frank Miller blog.
Listings detail the top box office films and those movies that are premiering soon. Oddly, all the links in this area take you to a standalone page that tells you about the movie but aren’t actual MySpace profile pages where you can leave comments, make friends with the page, and do all your other typical MySpace-y things. Instead, you’re just given some more information about the movie and a few pictures. I did learn that Jon Favreau directed Iron Man though, which I hadn’t known.
* MySpace Music
Music has always been a core asset on MySpace. Bands absolutely have to have a presence on MySpace because the music industry is crumbling/transforming and it’s the place where a massive audience of music listening/consuming kids is hanging out.
The first thing you notice on the music page is an enormous Apple ad that jumps in your face, with a woman swinging an iPod literally dancing her way out of the ad and around the screen. There’s also lots more exclusives, exclusive albums, exclusive music, and such. The “snocap featured download” is interesting, pointing you to a place where you can buy music from a MySpace ecommerce partner.
While just browsing the front page of the music section can take some time, there’s a Grand Theft Auto IV-sized universe of stuff to explore should you want to. The sub nav bar leads you to no less than: Music Videos, Directory, Search, Top Artists, Shows, Music Forums, Music Classifieds, and Artist Signup.
If you want to check out the modern face of MySpace, see Papoose, the current top “unsigned artist” on MySpace. The profile page is “tricked out” to show dollar (dollar bills y’all) floating behind our artist friend, with a host of Slide widgets, YouTube clips, and music to get you into that Papoose state of mind. You can buy music tracks via Snocap and “IF YOU ARE INTERSTED IN HAVING PAPOOSE PEFORMING” this is also the place.
* MySpace Apps
In an effort to compete with Facebook’s wildly popular platform for application development, MySpace has recently rolled out its own version. Anyone familiar with Facebook will quickly recognize things like SuperPoke and graffiti tools. Overall it has the feel of a we have this stuff too! kind of area.
* MySpace Forums
I think people forget sometimes that message boards and comments are still and shall be one of the quintessential online social activities. Check out this page of people simply posting pictures of their European sports cars. This is what people like to do on the Internet, and MySpace lets them do it.
* MySpace TV - “a place for videos”
Lest we forget, MySpace is among other things trying to compete with YouTube via MySpace TV. A mix of original content features, music videos, and user submitted videos are on offering. You have to love the animated .gifs displayed as thumbnails on the Featured Channels column. There’s no other way to take this than to say it’s so… MySpace. tmzTmzTMZ!!!
It also must be pointed out that you can vote up or vote down videos, which create a rating based on percentage. In MySpace TV land, that means you can rate a video via “Booyah!” or “No Way!” Yes way.
Here’s some kissing fish for you as a palate cleanser:
* Crazy wacky unbelievable weird psychedelic menagerie profiles
Most of what I wrote about above doesn’t really relate to the core thing that people do on MySpace, which is to check in with your own profile page, read messages and comments, and then browse around for cute guys/girls, check out pictures and videos on other peoples’ pages, and generally just cruise around the site, profile-by-profile. This is what “hanging out on MySpace” means.
Clicking around I was quickly able to visit a few grains of sand on MySpace Beach:
Don –> bright eyes –> Devin –> Abby
It’s important to remember too that MySpace was in the forefront of letting people do just about whatever they wanted to with their profile page. These little outposts of self-expression, a way to shout this is me, I’m important, this is what I’m into! are at the core of MySpace’s enduring popularity.
And as the logic now holds: as long as all your friends and cool bands and cute guys/girls are on MySpace, you probably will be too. I discuss whether the new Google Friend Connect has the potential to be a “MySpace killer” here.
And if we’re still looking to laugh off MySpace with our haughty-we’re-so-superior-than-thou laughs: it’s the 6th highest ranked website on the planet according to Alexa.
Booyah. Yes way.
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