keithstoeckeler:

i joined myspace when it was in its infancy. don’t believe me? ceerius’ original myspace has a friend id number of 39237 (which means we were the 39,237th to sign up and of course now myspace has sign ups in the tens of millions). when it first started it was heavily california users, i’m sure via word of mouth from those who signed up and passed the link along. it wasn’t much at the start, but the interface was cool enough to use now and wait for it to get its legs. owning a small business, being able to find someone who was twenty-five years old, a girl, who liked a said band, and was from a certain zip code, was amazing. that was the most targeted marketing we had. at the time facebook wasn’t much of anything. it was more college geared, and unless you had a college email, you couldn’t really use the site. as myspace took off, facebook caught up by way of allowing anyone to join the site, not just college students any longer. two years ago or so, it became a clear delineation — facebook was for finding old friends and tracking people down, while myspace was for promotion. this is why we re-designed ceerius’ entire myspace and started with a fresh account, it was hands down the best way to promote and with a growing user base, we could simply reach more people effectively. myspace was worth the time. facebook wasn’t.

of course we all know the obscenely large sale of myspace to murdoch and newscorp, where the conglomerate viewed myspace as a way to reach the 20 and 30 somethings (and younger) in their arena. myspace classifieds popped up. myspace music was set to grow by way of being able to purchase tracks and full albums straight from the site. but when myspace music flatlined, and myspace classifieds lost out to craigslist, myspace started a decline. the user interface became less simple to use and it seemed myspace, who was once the leader, had become the follower.

and then something interesting happened: your parents, your aunts and uncles, your cousins… they all sent you a friend request via facebook. facebook became the social networking site for all, while no parent, aunt or uncle, wanted to be caught dead with a myspace account and be friends with their child/nephew/niece and their “scantily dressed in photos” friends. even oprah devoted an entire show to facebook, and pushed her own oprah facebook group on the air. oprah didn’t devote a show to myspace.

a year or two ago, it seemed impossible that any site would overtake myspace. their growth and size was just too large. but facebook steadily made dents and now has done what i considered the impossible. they stayed true to themselves, made things easier for users, and you have to value that. currently, myspace is barely hanging onto the us market lead, in terms of users, and facebook has more international users.
needless to say, mr. van natta has his work cut out for him. i think we’ll all be curious to see what happens to myspace between now and the end of the year. i personally deleted my myspace profile. maybe i’ll join once more.