MySpace is Over

It was only a matter of time, but the ship has sailed.  Maybe all the Murdoch media pushed it over the edge, but regardless, MySpace is old news.  Well, maybe not old news, but it’s certainly lost its edge.  When you receive more friend requests from companies and bands you’ve never heard of than actual friends, you know its over.   

Anyone and everyone looking to capture the youth demographic have put together a MySpace profile, and yes, PSFK is officially on the bandwagon too.   However, there is a fine line between companies who are exploiting the “friendships" of MySpace and those  who are engaging in a dialog with their audience and offering some type of reciprocation for their consumers loyalty – be it information or entertainment.

MySpace’s hay-day might be over, because we’ve been noticing a surge in generic profiles circulating with no artistic, entertaining, or interactive elements whatsoever.  It was almost assumed that the porn industry would get involved early on, but when the cheap pharmaceuticals, the refinance your mortgage, and the work-from-home schemes all entered MySpace, the fat lady started screaming.

When companies make profiles on MySpace, it’s only cool if they conform to the “local language.”  They need to play by the same socially accepted rules as normal people.  Friends don’t meticulously track down anyone and everyone within their network to show them some crap. There needs to be an exchange between parties, where both parties feel mutually benefited.  When that rule is broken, it becomes spam, and no one likes spam (except Hawaii).

The beauty of MySpace was it’s level playing field.  There were fairly limited options to what someone could do their profile, and it was fun to see how people manipulated theirs through clever word play and what not.  While most people were probably happy to see the colorful manipulations that basic html coding brought to the monotonous world of MySpace, it opened the doors for companies who can afford to pay graphic designers to trick out their profile and spend countless hours promoting it.    

The ability to reach kids in their own world through their own medium is priceless, but it only works if companies continue to play by the existing rules. The marketability of MySpace may be the reason everyone’s talking now, but the marketability of MySpace may also be the reason people abandon it.

It was the kids who first made it a success. The kids will always be one step ahead and it’s only a matter of time until they flee the corporate meat market that is MySpace and find a new social networking site that’s off the radar – for now that is.   

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