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Is MySpace dead? Or, just with my world?

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I got an invitation to join a MySpace group today. Of course, it turned out to be spam. But, it made realize how nonexistent MySpace has become for me. I never get any mail notices, invites and it rarely comes up in conversation at all. Of course, it’s all Facebook, all the time. Is Facebook really the end-game? Probably not, but it’s incredible how quickly the game shifted to MySpace, and then to Facebook, rendering MySpace irrelevant to my peer group.

Do you use MySpace at all? Did you ever? If you stopped, what was the main reason?

Funny, because it isn’t like MySpace has gone away… it’s just become increasingly less relevant for many of us

www.facebook.com — another site i’ve spent even less time on

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From what I’ve heard, Facebook is a site similar to MySpace and others, but has more of a specific focus on connecting students at specific schools (high school and college), and has actually become a primary way of hooking up, if you know what I mean 😉

As I showed in a previous post, their site traffic is approximately 1/6 that of MySpace, and I wondered why? Well, the differences are striking after having spent 1-2 hours on each.

Their Tagline – Facebook is a social directory that enables people to share information.

Broader Intro – Launched in February 2004, Facebook helps people better understand their world by giving them access to the information that is most relevant to them. Facebook’s website has grown to over 7.5 million people and, according to comScore, ranks as the seventh-most trafficked site in the United States. People with a valid email address from a supported college, high school or company can register for Facebook and create a profile to share information, photos, and interests with their friends.

What Facebook Does Well:
– Very good at ensuring attendance at a school — that is, they require you to have a working email address from a school or employer (because they have you confirm your email) — this is much better than MySpace, which allows just about anyone to join a school or employer group
– Good interface for collecting indexable information (enabling sorting/tagging)
– Great tagging interface for photo uploads (ala FlickR)
– Some fun features like ‘Poke’ that allow you to show some interest (ala poking a girl in highschool who you may like… but i’m not sure how well that translates to work interactions!)

What Facebook Doesn’t Do Well:
– Terrible and boring design — did I mention it was bland as well?
– No brand extension beyond personal connections — now, I’d almost prefer nothing to the lame extensions that MySpace made, but at some point, FaceBook will need to extend beyond their hookup niche, I’d think
– Inability to join networks without having an active email — I assume they’re working to extend their networks, but if I wanted to join an alumni group for my undergrad, that would be impossible, because email didn’t even exist when I was there!
– Nothing beyond photos… no video… limited discussion boards… really just a photo/linking site… pretty lame in this day of age with YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, etc.

I can imagine that this would have been addictive like crack when I was in school, but I don’t see a use for it for anyone who’s left college… I was really underwhelmed by this experience… expected a lot more…