Is it just me, or do we agree that MySpace is having some serious issues right now. We love the concept (16 or 17 Million registered users agree), but problems are at some point going to start to outweigh the benefits and make MySpace look like YourLoss.
Lately, I’ve been encountering all sorts of problems with MySpacer pages that crash my browser because of their use of embedded music players that are freely available plugins from other sites. In additon, I’m coming across a ton of home pages that are just all over the road in terms of their background and design. MySpacers can actually use their own HTML or CSS and backgrounds to personalize their pages, but at the end of the day, many of them are truly just unreadable.
MySpace, in its essence, is as I said, truly a great idea in social networking, but the pressure is on now that they’ve been acquired by Interactive Corp. to come up with a piece of software that isn’t as buggy as what they’ve got now. It’s not the sign of an organization that truly understands how to handle user growth in new media.
On the other hand, I’m still liking Friendster for it’s simplicity, clean interface and ease of use. I also like the fact that you can write your blog on your own URL or through another blog community and link it into Friendster. I’ve seen some recent improvements on Friendster, save the fact the periodic Russian girl (most likely a scam artist) emails me about her plight and wants me to send her money to come to America. I did get a Nigerian girl today who on MySpace tried the same scam, so the problem does show up on both sites, but I just hit delete and that’s the end of it.
Here’s the MySpace message from MySpace’s famous face, Tom today:
Latest Update: 09:43PM PST, Monday, October 10th.
heya – few issues going on right now:
•image uploads are backed up – if you’re getting an error give it a few hours before you try again! 🙂
•online now status – being worked on
•site IM offline
•chatrooms offline
•miniplayers/add song to profile offline
Having the IM and chatrooms offline can be a killer for a company that depends on those services for a majority of their interactivity, which as a “social network” they should have. With these features unavailable, growth could be stunted, users turned off and those frustrations can be a boon to the next online service with better technology…hmmmm…makes me think!
The sole advantage MySpace has over Friendster is their ability to break new artists via their music-centric focus, but Friendster has a big wallet, a new CEO and a new look. I’m not a member of The Facebook. I’m going to join and see what it’s like inside. If I were MySpace, I’d be figuring out how to prevent an exodus, and fast. Competition is fierce and kids have a brief attention span.
Tony Z.
