While Facebook today is an absolute juggernaut, with about one in seven humans on the planet being a "monthly active user," it's almost hard to remember that before November 2007, MySpace was the biggest game in town. Since then, MySpace has more or less been relegated to punchline status, a desolate place with fewer users than it had twinkling background GIFs. But it seems MySpace is about to launch a dramatic redesign of the site that brings its interface well and truly into the touch-screen era and, frankly, makes the gigantic Facebook site look a bit stodgy and old-fashioned in comparison.
Competition drives innovation – and while Facebook has certainly innovated in the last five years, just about every step along the way has been met with furious complaints from its user base. Case in point: Timeline.
Still, despite the adverse user reaction to such minor changes, the overall look and feel of the Facebook site is still very much the same as it was when the majority of us got on board. It looks a bit "Web 2.0" – and while I'm not sure exactly which release number web we're supposed to be up to right now, things have definitely moved on.
There's a sense out there that Facebook's gigantic user base and its famous resistance to change is slowing the company down - but with Google Plus failing to capture peoples' imaginations, there's really been very few genuine alternatives for people wanting to jump ship.
That may be about to change. The desolate, tumbleweed-filled plains of MySpace may bear fruit again. In a video released yesterday, MySpace showed off a brand new interface, heavily influenced by tablet computing and Windows 8, that blows the doors off Facebook and Google Plus in a purely visual sense.
Check out the video:
Perhaps one of the most powerful features will be the ability to auto-connect and import your Facebook friend lists. One wonders how long that functionality will survive if this becomes a genuine competitor to Zuckerberg's virtual monopoly.
The interface is highly visual, featuring full-page background photos and videos, so it'll chew a ton more bandwidth than Facebook or Google Plus, but then most of the first world has long handed in its dial-up internet. Cable, DSL and 4G mobile connections are widening the pipe for the average joe to a degree where the minimalist designs of Facebook and Google may cease to be an advantage.
It actually looks like this new iteration might make MySpace actually become relevant again. It certainly seems worth a look – I'm always hunting for new ways to tell people what I had for breakfast. My people need to know, damn it!
Take a closer look at the interface by looking through our huge photo gallery.
The first and solvable one is that of performance. I haven't seen their latest redesign but it's not their first. They have already made one major redesign in response to the rising popularity of Facebook a couple of years ago. I checked it at the time and it was terribly slow and unresponsive. They appear to lack the knowhow of making a truly interactive, fast interface.
But the biggest problem is that they're still focused on music. Just look at that video - it's Justin Timberlake and going to shows and whatnot. This is not a Facebook killer simply because this is not a general purpose social network and they don't intend it to be. They are attempting to carve out a niche for themselves but it's just this - a niche product.
Take Apple for example (When Steve Jobs was still there): The sole aim was to blow the users mind. And that is why people queue through the night for their products.
But Facebook was a mind blowing concept at first, a "solution" to a digital era problem. But all further development and "improvement" of Facebook was aimed at pleasing the advertisers on Facebook, not the users. A user orientated improvement will only be made if that information could be used to attract more advertisers.
Google Plus, App.net all have the right idea in the sense that they know users want a service aimed at them, but there nerdy insight less approach will never attract the masses.
Frankly if Myspace could be the center point that functions as your music player, social network, etc. with a interface as demonstrated in that video, its gonna blow people's mind, not just the nerds or anti-Facebookers..
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