Myspace's facelift

Is Myspace an exception to the usability rule? Dave Katz from In-house seems to think so according to this week's issue of marketing, and he may have a point.

Conventionally any improvement made that eases navigation and usability on the site is a good thing, but not when it makes it idiotproof enough for your mum and grandmother to tap into. The whole concept of myspace was centred around a youth tech savy culture who held the advantage of being the only ones who had the time and willingness to work out how the site worked. The question is will it loss its image and appeal now that it has become very user friendly and not unlike facebook in design!?

Being one of the first of its kind Myspace had an advantage, with low user expectations, but now with so many other social neworks to compete with it was inevitable that they would have to step up their game and make it easier to use. They site does still have a fairly distincive look being one of the few who use graphical backgrounds and allow you to customise your profile page. However the site has slightly lost its independent feel and seems to have conformed to the masses or the facebook mass.

I think it could have been more daring and stood out from the group with a funkier egde given its 'in group trendy' following. Though im sure its angle on music will keep it afloat.

What do you think?

My million spaces.com

The online world has gone a little bit mad. All morning I've been browsing the net and asked to sign in, sign up and make a profile no less than 8 times.

All I wanted to do was engage in a little light entertainment and comment on a stupid video I'd seem on stupidvideos.com but found I had to sign up, enter my details, create a profile, invite my friends, load my videos, upload pictures,Is there a site out there offering content that doesn't ask you first to sign up enter your details and create a profile. It all seems very time consuming. Is there a reason why we can't have one login, one username, one password and one profile that can be used for everything.

Its great that companies have woken up to the opportunities of data capturing and social networks but it does seem to have become a bit ridiculous. Has everyone just jumped on the band wagon? It will be interesting to see how long these last.

Will there be a user backlash in the wake, where people get sick of trying to keep up with all their networks, passwords and blogs and call for one universal network? or do we like these small niches where we can decompartmentalise our life and interests. I suppose it relates to the postmodernism whereby consumers enjoy being playful with their identity and roles in society.

It does raise a scary thought though. One that brings us back to initial worries of communicating over an annoymous interface. People we talk to aren't necessary who we think they are so therefore are these networks that we set up resting on lies? Perhaps for the minority but lets not get too paranoid.

My space or our space?

Is the aptly named My space a true description of how people see and use these social networking sites? the theory behind them was to allow users to generate their own content to share with others and facilitate debate and discussions on issues that concern them but are they just being used on a more individual level?

It seems to me that there is more focus on putting out information about your self and your opinions but is anyone reading each others.

Some social networks have facilities to allow users to post blogs on their sites such as bebo but it questionable how many people do this and even more to the point how many people actually go out and read each others and consider other points of view.

There is no doubt that keen bloggers out there read others on related issues and leave comments and participate in discussions though I think this function of social networks is only being used by the minority.

Going on to 'stalk' friends and find out what they're up to and have a flick through their posted pictures is as far as sharing seems to go espeially for the youth generation. Is this alternative use productive or just an easy way of pulling traffic to the site in order to create attractive advertising space.

Is poking our friends and posting up pictures of ourselves productive or of value to anyone besides the office gossip or should we not be encouraged to share ideas and points of view for the benefit of the community? Though would anyone be willing to listen? I am doubtful as I'm beginning to think that this type of behaviour made us more inward looking and selfish, pushing out our own views and disgarding everyone elses, traits that cannot be good to encourage in society. Though its just an observation. +