What's most irritating is I've yet to discover why people choose Facebook over MySpace. Surveying my Facebook and MySpace friends (and only receiving answers from those using the former--go figure), I set out to lay this argument to rest. Here's what some of my friends had to say:
1. No ridiculous page loading times. This kind of surprised me because while I'm completely averse to (see also: too lazy to) decorating my MySpace I figured that people enjoyed this freedom. Facebook places parameters on customizing your profile such as not letting you. Okay, okay so you can add pictures and update your status. In short, it seems people got tired of waiting for the Michael Jackson tribute profile backgrounds to load, thus opting to wait for something more important over at Facebook. Like new Terms of Service.
meee-yow!
2. No spam and no/less profile hacking. 'Nuff said.
3. More user friendly interface. This threw me for a loop. I consider myself pretty internet savvy, so I must have lost some serious brain cells or relied too heavily on MySpace's interface because I couldn't get the hang of Facebook for a long time. I'd all but given up after creating 23 one-picture albums because I couldn't figure out how to add to an existing album when my sister convinced me to hang in there. Nothing like family to keep you on the bandwagon. I now understand Facebook a little bit better, but fail to see it's user-friendliness over that of MySpace. While its design is much cleaner, basic functions seem to require more steps than necessary.
i can haz facebook helpz?
Furthermore, the apps are ridiculous. My mom's on Facebook (and that's an entire post in and of itself--namely, moms shouldn't be on Facebook) and she used to send me bumper stickers. W-T-F? I tried to accept them only to be asked to send them on to 20 of my own friends. Apparently there's a "skip this step" link somewhere, but it was about as visible as Heidi Montag's self-respect (NSFW). Because of my terrible app experience, I reject any and all apps that come my way. Even if they look interesting, the fact that I have to set it up on my Facebook then update it in order for it to update on my Facebook confuses and annoys me.
4. Facebook=brevity. Should have seen this one coming. In the age of micro-blogging, short and sweet is where it's at. I think short and sweet has its place. Like when people are describing me. However, social networking is intended for expression. This is a difficult claim to argue, though, as I agree that many MySpacers take expression to new levels (aka writing novels). Facebook abbreviates posts so that while browsing your News Feed you can choose to skip or read on without being forced to scroll through pages of angsty musings and PR rants. Maybe I'm old school, but I'm down with blogging. I'm down with saying what you have to say in over 140 characters if necessary. I guess it's not like Facebook is a character nazi, they just abbreviate posts that exceed a certain limit. I can live with that.
lolz !
5. Facebook is "more adult." This statement is directly attributed to the lack of glitter letters, half-naked women asking-to-be-your-friend messages, and hacked comments with links to "awesome Web sites." I can sympathize with that because there's nothing worse than that except the half-naked woman commenting in glitter letters that you should check out this
Truly, I can see the plus side to using Facebook over MySpace, but I think there's more to it than just features and lack of spam. Before MySpace was a very weak Friendster. MySpace blew it out of the water by perfecting many of its flaws. Now Facebook is doing it better, according to many people. This seems to me like a simple case of evolution of the fittest. It could also be that people like to jump on the new thing (see also: Twitter's success) and/or a case of good timing.
Dearest MySpace,
Suggestions:
1. Stricter measures against hacking and spam
2. A heads up before you're about to load a heavy-duty profile and/or a limit
3. An easily accessible suggestion link
4. Allow users to make changes to the NEW (gasp!) MySpace (aka revamp MySpace and make it user's choice--plenty of PR opportunities in that alone)
5. Revamp Tom's communication and image--the guy still has the same picture in front of the whiteboard for God's sake
bffs forever
Always (until I become a Facebooker),
Chelsea
