Reflections: MySpace vs. Facebook (part 4)

So what do I like? I have Facebook, Bebo, Orkut, MySpace, and Friendster (though I think I only ever logged into Friendster once). I even tried Second Life, but I don't do well in 3D environments, and Second Life is a shitty 3D environment. Orkut was interesting when it first came out, but you couldn't do anything there. I feel much the same way about Bebo. MySpace annoys me something awful; I personally find it garish, hard to use, and not especially interesting, but my only friends on it are bands, so I am likely not a representative user. Facebook is my favourite of all of them; I find it easy to use, I have connected with people I know and care about in a novel way, and the iLike music challenge has filled many an empty minute.

Which is better/safer/more appropriate for That depends on what the blank is, and what you want to use it for. From a usability perspective, Facebook is better. From a customisability perspective, MySpace is better. From a safety perspective, neither is better, because online safety, like offline safety, comes from knowing the risks.

Which one will people be using in ten years time? Almost certainly neither, at least not in their present forms.

Reflections: MySpace vs. Facebook (part 3)

The other reasons I can see for using Facebook are almost opposite, and many of them have swayed me to be more interested in Facebook than MySpace. I like not being able to decorate my profile, because I am lazy and would prefer not to have to, for example, and I am from mainstream western culture, so I find the colours appealing. There are a couple of other reasons why people might (in my view) use Facebook over MySpace that boyd didn't cover:

• Applications: the Music quiz, smileys, movie tracker, book thing and food fight are fun, and not available on MySpace. This could also be a draw to technically savvy users who want to create their own applications, though in my experience the control exerted by Facebook central is likely to be a discouragement to an extreme technically minded audience (because programmers have a tendency to be somewhat anarchic)
• Privacy control is much simpler to use, and more finely grained in Facebook than in MySpace, which has a certain appeal to those who rather than using their SN for fame are using it for communication and entertainment. This group of people don't want the world to see their profile; it is for them and for their friends (though to be fair, the TOS are equally disturbing for MySpace and Facebook; neither afford much privacy at all from the companies that own them).

Reflections: MySpace vs. Facebook (part 2)

Reasons I can see for choosing MySpace over Facebook (or indeed having both) include:

• The bandwagon -- many bands are on MySpace (indeed, many do not bother to have webpages anymore) and it provides a forum for fans to interact with bands
• The ability to personalise the look of your MySpace page using HTML is a draw, I would guess, for those with artistic flair, and those with technical skills (and to a certain extent these groups will be boyd's 'subaltern' teens)
• Cultural usability: There are studies, such as Elke Duncker's work on cultural aspects of usability, that show that different cultures find different colours and layouts appealing. Given what I know of Duncker's work, the appeal of MySpace to certain cultural groups is that they will be able to make it fit their cultural preferences for colour (whereas Facebook uses colours that are accepted by mainstream western culture).
• Reputation: MySpace has a reputation for being badass, not helped by the furore over 'predators' and the like*. If you wanna be a badass, you use MySpace. This point is sublty different to boyd's; she makes the point that there are teens who use MySpace because they are already somehow different; my point is now that MySpace has this reputation, and will attract some kids because of it.

* boyd comments on this, too. I know what she is saying, that it is extremely unlikely that your kid will be one of the rare ones who is a target as a result of his or her MySpace use, and that there are other more realistic situations to watch out for. Fair enough. However, I can also understand the panic, because if it is your kid who gets attacked by a MySpace predator, well, all the reassurances in the world that it was unlikely aren't going to make you feel better.

Reflections: MySpace vs. Facebook

I read with interest danah boyd's essay about MySpace and Facebook, and how different groups use them differently in the states, and I figure she has it pretty right, at least in terms of generalisations that can be made about US teenagers (and hey, after all, the report was not supposed to be cut and dried; it was ideas, not facts and the fact that the media has gone so nuts over it suggests that they need to educate themselves to recognise a journal article when they see one -- and not see them where they don't exist). She has done the research on this, and far be it from me to speak to the contrary.

What I would like to talk about is the other reasons I can see for things being the way they are, than purely as a result of class which is not, of course, to say that danah didn't also recognise these), and reflect on my own personal experiences with both services.