ArticlesUntil recently, MySpace didn’t hold much interest for me.
Last weekend, I have discovered dozens of friends and acquaintances have MySpace accounts.
I am starting a Pro/Con list for whether I want one.
Do I want a MySpace account?
- – I already have a blog.
- + It can help me remember the people I’ve met.
- – The cluttered look-and-feel makes me cringe.
- – The automatic playing of background audio when you visit a site is an evil that I should not encourage.
- – The spelling.
- + I can keep track of old friends.
- – The Ghost of MySpace past.
- + I can find people I have lost contact with in the past and, if desired, rekindle the friendship.
- + Great way to meet new and interesting people.
- – I frequently meet lots of new and interesting people in the 15-24 year age group. My challenge is to meet new and interesting age-appropriate people, who are outside the MySpace target demographic.
- + Offers a softer intermediate between never seeing a friend-of-a-friend again and exchanging phone numbers.
- – I was speaking to an interesting 20-odd guy the other day, and we wondered whether sharing details of an on-line presence was a particularly poor way of getting to know someone.
- – If you really want to know my star-sign, I don’t think I want to pursue a friendship with you.
- – If you really want to know my musical tastes, I don’t think you’ll want to pursue a friendship with me.
- + Easy to set-up.
- – Difficult to balance privacy issues. (Is it just me who cringes when people publish personal messages to the public blog of a friend?)
- + Networking, networking, networking.
- – The whole confusion between what is a “friend”. One acquaintance of mine is apparently friends with Woody Allen, according to MySpace. That means he is a fan. What does it mean to network when the people you are trying to contact have never heard of them.
- + I can get caught up into the craze of gathering “friends”, like they were Pokemon.
- – I can get caught up into the craze of gathering “friends”, like they were Pokemon.
Browser support to restrict this is surely coming, right?
Did I miss anything?
Comment by Jason on March 8, 2007
You probably want to try facebook if anything. Personally i do not have any kind of social networking accounts, but at least facebook limits interface customizability so its still useable. Also facebook apparently have better privacy features (networks, limiting to “friends” and such)
Comment by Julian on March 8, 2007
Jason,
Your reasoning is probably strong; I probably would prefer Facebook, but if my friends are all on MySpace…
MySpace wins due to the network effect.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on March 8, 2007
I’d really want to know your zodiac sign! Now what?
Comment by Julian on March 8, 2007
Aristotle,
I considered various responses: ignoring you, suggesting that you should know me well enough by now to guess, telling you the truth (being born between Nov 30 – Dec 17 in the 20th Century makes me lucky enough to be an Ophiuchus), but I eventually decided to milk an entire post out of it.
Thanks for your question!
Comment by Richard on March 8, 2007
+ You can get you some Ugly MySpace.
+ You can set your tune to “I’m about to whip somebody’s ass.”
– (If you weren’t a heartless bastard) I heard somewhere that there’s a limit to how many people are in your best friends list, and you can really destroy a so-so relationship (not that kind, the other!) by setting your evaluation of the relationship too high or too low. 14 year olds have been known to resort to hand-to-hand combat over it. (Being rumor about social software I don’t need, I can’t be bothered researching this to find out which wares it affects, if any, or if the fighting really does happen. I’ll leave that to your wider oddience to resolve.)
Comment by Jason on March 9, 2007
Probably facebook is only popular within the school (high school/university) crowd then, since alot of my friends are using facebook almost exclusively.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on March 9, 2007
Heh. Good to know that a half-assed attempt at humour with a tossed-out contrarian rib served as useful inspiration. :)
Comment by Improfane on March 19, 2007
I’ve recently joined the social networking bandwagon. I’m using Multiply. I prefer it because it focuses on friends you already have rather than new friends like MySpace. I’m in the process of inviting all my friends over. You specify what content you put up is visible to whom too.
It only works in Firefox properly and fails in Internet Explorer and Opera. This could prevent you from sharing it to family if you haven’t caused them to switch.