Andrew Wirtanen is a usability specialist in Cary, NC More »

The Death of MySpace

Today, I am deleting my MySpace account. I’ve had it. There is no reason for me to be on there. There is a quote that has been long attributed to Einstein (but no one knows if it was him) that sums up my situation:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. [quotationspage.com]

I have never liked MySpace. I reluctantly packed my bags from Friendster to MySpace after all my friends did. Now, it seems all of my friends (or at least the ones I talk to) have already done the same with Facebook. Facebook is much better, cleaner, and less likely to kill my browser or give me unexpected errors. Also, the average intelligence level on Facebook is much higher. I like Facebook and I was one of the first users (24th precisely) when I was at RIT.

And now, I present to you a story, in screenshots, of my typical MySpace experience:

1. I log in, or I try to. The main page is full of animated ads and gives me so many options. I just want to log in and look at my messages! Who uses all these options? Books! That must be a popular feature.
   
2. Ok, now I am all logged in. I have new messages and new friend requests! Evangeline wants to be my friend…
   She looks like a nice girl:
   
   Wait a second, I take that back. Her profile says “CLICK HERE FOR MY NAUGHTY PICS!!” That’s not very nice. You didn’t have to use all CAPS and two exclamation points, either. To top it off, I get at least two friend requests from fake women like Evangeline every single day.
3. Let’s check my messages. Gwendolyn says “Hi” and sends me a nice image:
   
   Oh wait, this is spam. Do I click “Block User,” “Flag as Spam,” “Report Abuse,” or “Delete”? The rest my messages are also spam or bands that want to be my friend. I clicked an option on MySpace that allows you to not receive invites from bands. But, they still message me.
4. Ok, at this point I usually either leave, browse my friend’s profiles until MySpace crashes Firefox, or click on some of the bulletins. Bulletins are broadcast messages you can send to all of your friends. Usually, they are from bands (if you are friends with bands) or people who really like doing surveys about themselves.

MySpace is a site that is surviving with their dwindling user base. They are in the mid-late technology adoption phase. The site is struggling to add features similar to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other websites/services that are much better. For example, MySpace just added status updates. Of course, they don’t support substituting in your Twitter or Jaiku status updates. Why would they do that?

Goodbye MySpace, and good luck with your spam problem.

P.S. Nice try with the green and red buttons. Cute.

I have a myspace account but I don’t think I have logged into that damn thing in ages. I never did like the layouts of the pages. Even with my screen resolution at its highest I still had to scroll to the left and right! With so many users on Facebook I have a feeling that myspace will be non-existent in 2 years.

It’s cool, I’ll just poke ya on Facebook Hope all is well, and that I see you soon. Enjoy the nice weather down the Cape!