WEBVTT - The MySpace Story (So Far) 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.920 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:17.880 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:20.160 and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Bollett 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.120 and I am an editor here at how stuff works 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.360 dot com. Sitting across from me as usual laughing because 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.720 we just had an out pick. And senior writer Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.239 you are a sad, strange little man. That was in 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:37.599 fact the quote that I grabbed. And before we get 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:47.000 into this topic, we have a little listener me. This 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.519 listen mail comes from Ben. Ben says, Hey, guys, love 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.159 your podcasts. What happened to my Space? I'm new to 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.120 social networking, but remember friends of mine talking about my 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.040 Space and how cool it was for some time. Then overnight, 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:03.680 almost literally, there's Facebook, this new thing and has been 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.440 ever since. What is it that separates the two and 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:10.000 what is it that gives Facebook it's edge? Well, Ben, 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.240 we're gonna talk a little bit about my Space, the 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.160 history of it, what's happening with my Space now and 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:20.480 kind of you know, it's sort of fall from grace really, yes, yes, 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.039 As it turns out, Facebook is has housed in a 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:28.520 giant cube in space and the people onboard are androids. 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.440 That's no moon, that's a social networking site. You will 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.200 be assimilated. Okay, no, none of that is true. No, no, 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:37.880 that's not true. But it does sort of seem like 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.000 they popped up out of nowhere and took over and 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.600 about the same time. Actually, my Space started back in 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:48.960 two thousand three. Man, that's really old. Yeah, well at 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.440 least in Internet terms. Internet terms of this pretty old. 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:53.080 What's weird is that I sit there and I think 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:55.240 about how long some of these things have been around, 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.000 Like I feel like I've been using Twitter forever, and 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.560 I think, wait a minute, it's been a little over 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:05.880 two years. That's it. Um. So with with my Space. 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.000 It began as a for profit company back in two 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.680 thousand three. And if you joined my Space back in 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:16.400 the day, you might be familiar with Tom. He was 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.200 your first friend on my Space. Yes, he was referred 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.800 to Tom Anderson, one of the co founders of the 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:26.040 of MySpace dot com. And um, Tom was the automatic 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.840 first friend you had, and then you could search for 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.200 other friends using things like you know their email addresses? Yes, 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.040 so you could look around and join um and uh, 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.200 request friends with all the people you know, and then 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.040 build up your network that way, same way as most 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.600 social networks work. Really, yes, I am and looking at 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.360 the diagram we have on our now aging article on 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.679 my Space, it reminds me of LinkedIn, Like you had 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.960 circles of friends, you know you friends and friends of 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.240 friends and friends and friends of friends, which really it 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:03.000 looks just like what Zuckerberg would call the social when 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.040 he steps up in front of like, you know, he 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.160 he would have his own grid of showing the social 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.800 network and how your friends. You have a you have 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:11.960 a circle of friends, and then they have their own 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.280 circle of friends, some of which overlap your circle and 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.799 some which don't. And then what will be really what's 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.880 really interesting is when you start finding connections between friends 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:22.800 that you didn't know existed, Like you had you have 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.560 a friend over here who's from your let's say baseball team, 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:28.919 like you played baseball with them, and a friend over 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.680 on the other side who was in um uh a 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.640 class with you at a college that was across the 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.520 country from where you played baseball, and yet these two 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.120 people are also friends with each other. And then you think, 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:42.720 how the heck did that happen, And did you realize 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.200 Wait a minute, I'm not the connecting point for these people. 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.680 They knew each other before without independently of knowing me. 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.560 Small world, as they say. Yes, you know when you 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.160 said a moment ago connections between friends you didn't even 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.600 know existed, I thought, somehow you found out about my 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.080 imaginary friends, and I was kind of go, how did 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:05.160 you know a totally different social networking site, non space 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.720 is what that was called. So my imaginary friendster? Yeah, 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.040 oh well, and and Friendster was around. Actually, Friendster was 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:17.080 the dominant social networking site back when my Space first arrived. 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.800 So my Space goes online around two thousand three, end 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.400 of two thousand three, and Facebook pops up at the 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:27.320 beginning of two thousand four, So that that was straight 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:32.840 again there we go. That was Facebook popping and your 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.880 your face has been booked, as they used to say 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.120 in my head. So anyway, Facebook popped up in around 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.600 two thousand four. And when Facebook first started it was 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.520 limited to college students. It was later opened up to 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.960 high school students and college students. Actually, originally it was 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:55.120 just Harvard students, but indeed Harvard then college, then high 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.760 school then eventually everyone else. Well, there was a two 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.880 year period where Facebook was not open to the public, yes, 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.200 but my Space was. So my Space got a jump 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.520 on Facebook on anyone who was not currently in school. 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:12.839 I remember at this time I was out of school. 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.240 I could not join Facebook when it first started because 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:19.680 I no longer had a college email address, so I 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.839 created a profile on my Space. Many of my friends 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.560 also created profiles on my Space, so my space got 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:27.800 a pretty big jump early on. I got a lot 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:33.120 of users. Um, and it had a different style from Facebook. 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.120 Oh yes, it has a much different style from Facebook. 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.440 As a matter of fact, one of the ways that 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:42.560 I first became affiliated or I'm sorry, more aware of 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.640 my space was I thought of it as a band 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.200 site because b A N D not B A N 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.720 N E D depends on where you work, but because 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.919 it was both in some instances. This is true um 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.920 and probably still has but yeah, I mean it was. 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.280 That was one of the things that I thought was 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.480 really neat about my my spaces. Um. And for people 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:13.960 in independent label bands like myself, Um, you could post 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.120 samples of your music up, the whole songs and give 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:22.040 people an opportunity to hear it and I actually thought, uh, initially, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:24.720 I thought that that's what the site was for, was 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.280 for bands to put music up in musicians to work 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.680 with other musicians. Very prescient of you, Yes, as it 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.159 turns up, but we'll get into that. Yes, but yeah, no, 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:35.800 that was that. That was kind of funny because I 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.600 thought it was specifically for that, and it had it. Definitely, 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:41.240 my Space had a huge advantage over Facebook as far 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.960 as sharing things like getting it discovering bands. Yes, my 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:50.560 Space was superior to Facebook in that sense, even after 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:55.279 Facebook went public, because Facebook groups were primitive compared to 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.400 my Space band pages. So on a band page you 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.120 could find not just music, but also things like schedules 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:04.920 and blog posts, photo albums, all that kind of stuff, 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.680 just like any person's profile. That's the other thing is 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.840 my Space allowed you to have a customizable profile page, 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.880 which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.000 in the sense of if you had some if you 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:21.520 had really good design skills, you could create an attractive, 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.720 easily readable my Space layout. You could even if you 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.640 wanted to. You could incorporate things like songs that you 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:30.680 really liked. You could find songs on my Space and 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:35.200 add them to your profile. Uh. Sadly, this usually resulted 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.120 in auto play, which means meant that if you were 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.800 visiting someone else's profile and they picked a song that 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:44.240 you hated, uh, you know, it would suddenly start blasting 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.400 out of your computer until you either muted it, muted 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:51.080 your computer, or found the um the control on the 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.200 profile page and and paused it. And because those pages 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:59.080 were customizable, the control was not always in the same spot. Yes, 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.240 it became really irritating. Like you'd go to like, I 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.720 have friends and I love them to death, but my god, 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:11.640 they have terrible music. Terrible music, tastes horrible. Some of 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.640 them don't even know who the Ramons were, that's how 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.200 bad they were. Yeah, for a moment, I thought you 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.160 were talking about me, but then I realized I know 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.440 who the remon are, so it's probably not. No, not 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.480 talking about you. I've listened to you play. Your band's 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.000 music was not. It did not make me want to 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.520 go out on a rampage, all right, But some of 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.319 my friends had music that did. Um Yeah, especially if 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.280 they picked really irritating uh Internet songs. Like there was 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.880 one person who had what was it the it was 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.880 essentially the same people who did the hamster dance music. Oh, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:48.480 the the really high pitched stuff. It wasn't crazy Frog. 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:53.000 That's it crazy Frog. Oh I Love you the Death Girl. 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.800 But man, that crazy Frog song on auto play just 0:08:58.240 --> 0:08:59.880 it was enough for me not to go and visit 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:04.520 your profile. So anyway, the customizable profile was a blessing 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.400 and a curse. It actually was something that it had 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:10.360 that Friendster did not have, and that may have contributed 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.880 to people adopting my Space over friendster Um. And again, 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.000 because it was open to everyone, it wasn't just restricted 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.680 to college students, it meant that my Space got a 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.240 lot of people pretty quickly. So I'm sorry you were 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.120 about to say, I was just also going to add 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:30.760 that apparently my Space was set up on a better platform, 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:35.040 which also aided it over Friendster because friendster Um had 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.040 difficulty with the amount of traffic it was getting. It 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:42.920 grew very quickly, and it really kind of outgrew itself 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:47.480 very quickly to the point where an alternative like my Space, 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:52.920 which was which had the traffic disseminated over the company's 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:57.480 network more efficiently, was able to handle the load. And um, 0:09:57.559 --> 0:09:59.960 we all know on the Internet, people don't wait around 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.880 once they're Even when their favorite site UH starts having 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.520 difficulties or is completely reformat it in a way that 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:11.600 makes it unpopular to use, people will bolt even from 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.679 their most favorite sites, or at least about it at length. 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:17.160 Yes to anyone who will listen, because that's one of 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.920 the things about Facebook is that it kept During this time, 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.520 Facebook changed it's its user interface a couple of times, 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.160 and each time it's it's the same today. Each time 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:31.000 Facebook does that, uh, you could expect the next week 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.840 to be filled with complaints about Facebook's new user interface, 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:39.079 both on Facebook and also on Twitter. Yes, I particularly 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:43.560 enjoy how it seems like of people are screaming about 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.040 the layout. Why did they put fill in the blank here? 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:49.880 Over filling the blank there? Because they can't find the thing. 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:53.480 And then there's always one person. There's always one, or 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:55.000 it could be more, but there's always one of goes, 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.559 I don't know, I don't think it's that bad. I'm 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:00.400 usually the one who says I can't I don't think 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.840 it's that bad. Here's the thing is that by the 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.559 following month, everyone's forgotten about it, and then the next 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:08.840 change becomes the one that you're like, oh, seriously, this 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:10.680 is terrible. I can't believe you did this. And you're like, 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.360 wait a minute. You hated these changes back when they 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.040 made them like three months ago. Why is it now 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.880 the best thing ever? And you hate new changes because 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:24.079 we're people, well friends. Store was was just hard, outright 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.160 hard to use at that point, and my Space was there. 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:31.200 Facebook was still restricted to a certain group. So my 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.600 Space took off and it was a very popular site 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:35.640 for a very very long time. It'll let you create 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.439 photo albums, that let you create a blog on your 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:43.000 MySpace profile. You could leave messages for other people. Eventually 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.520 you could chat with other people through an instant messaging 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.000 on on the MySpace platform. Of course, they also had 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:51.600 to be a logged into my Space at that time 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:53.200 for the chat to work, but you could leave messages 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.040 if they weren't. Um. So, I mean, there's a lot 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:58.160 of the functionality that we later saw built into other 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.400 social networking sites. And uh, it was doing really well, 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.520 in fact, so well that in two thousand five another 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.400 company swooped in and um and paid a pretty penny 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:12.200 for MySpace dot com. Yes more than a pretty penny. Actually, 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:17.959 it was Intermix, the company that owned my Space. Um. 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:24.600 They were acquired by a little known magnet from Australia. Yes, 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:35.920 Mr Murdock, Rupert Murdock, scourge of the Internet. Yeah, Rupert Murdoch. 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:41.400 Who who who probably has lost more money and and 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.160 won it back again than I will ever see in 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:49.400 my entire life. Um. His his, His company Newscore purchased 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.319 MySpace dot Com in two thousand five for five hundred 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:57.600 eighty million dollars. It's million with an M. Yes. Um. 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.840 Interestingly enough, I went back to look at the coverage 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:05.280 at that time because I've thought of my space is 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.240 being synonymous with Fox and News Corps for so long 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.800 that I was I was trying to get a sense 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.000 of what happened and when it happened and how much 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:17.080 it was. And it was funny because the coverage at 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:23.520 the time said that news Corps had acquired Intermix theoretically 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:27.800 to gain my Space. So it's funny because I think 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:31.040 of it specifically in those terms. But um, there were 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:35.160 other technologies that that Intermix had that were not nearly 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.240 the newsmaker that that my Space was. I would say, 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.080 I think it's safe to say that my Space was 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.680 definitely the crown jewel of the acquisition for news corp. 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:45.000 And they thought it was going to make them a 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.080 whole lot of money. Well, at the time, my Space 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.960 was incredibly successful. There was no sign that that was 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.160 going to change at all. Yes, as far as anyone 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:55.520 could tell, my Space was just going to keep on growing. 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.720 It was going to be a monster and see double 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:01.160 digit growth each year and um, and this was two 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:05.080 thousand five. Two thousand six is what I think the 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:10.640 event that eventually reverse the fortunes of MySpace dot com. Right, Well, 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:12.839 I think before we go on to that, sure we 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.280 should add that my Space you know, talking about the 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.760 growth and you're saying, okay, so what does maybe what 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.040 does the growth mean? You know, Okay, so they've got 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.680 lots of people, they're growing at a very very rapid pace. Well, 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.880 they were making their money off of advertising. So the 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:32.280 more people that visit your site, um and click on advertising, 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.000 the more money the site makes. So news Corpus looking 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:39.880 at this is an opportunity for advertising dollars and that's important. 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.560 I think it will be important because of the two 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:46.680 thousand six part. Yeah, because clearly the thing that you're 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.040 advertising relies upon is heavy traffic. Yes, the heavier of 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.400 the traffic, the more money you make. If the traffic 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:54.760 starts to slack off, then you don't make as much money. 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.040 And if the traffic lacks off enough, you start to 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:01.160 lose money. Right. So that's that's that was their income stream, 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:05.680 right And Murdoch is known for having pretty um concrete 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:07.920 ideas of how profitable a business needs to be in 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.000 order for it to be worthwhile. We didn't get to 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.800 be successful as successful as he is by not having 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.480 any business acumen. He is certainly not a charity. Um. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.800 He is in the business of making money and he's 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.200 very very good at it. Yes. So anyway, that's that 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.040 no one could have seen in two thousand five necessarily 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:29.880 that my Space was going to be headed for a 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.840 reversal unfortune. However, in two thousand and six, that's when 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:38.040 Zuckerberg and crew opened up Facebook to the general public. Yes, 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:42.040 and of course traffic took off at that point because 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.440 Facebook was an alternative to my Space. People wanted to 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:47.280 see what it was about. They tried it out, they 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.920 liked it. Also, they had a lot of young folks 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.120 on Facebook at that point, because you had people who 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.280 were either either you know, in high school just getting 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:58.760 into college, or maybe you have just graduated from college, 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:00.920 but they had created a profile back when they were 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.880 in college. So uh so you have this young, dynamic 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.240 audience that's already built into your social network. There were 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:15.040 also some stories in the news about um about predators 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.720 on my Space. There was it actually became kind of prevalent. 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.640 In fact, my Space rightly or wrongly, began to develop 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.880 a reputation as being a wretched hive of scum and 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.480 villainy if you were um It's I'm not saying that 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.960 that reputation was actually earned, but it certainly had it. 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.360 You know, I remember people saying, like I remember seeing 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.080 news interviews where kids were saying they preferred Facebook over 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.600 my Space because my Space was where all the sleazy 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.200 people were, the people you don't want to have contact with, 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.200 strangers who uh would try and befriend you, and it 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:54.240 was just creepy and Facebook was the friendly site. Well 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.200 I will I will say this. Another thing that that 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:01.720 my Space had that really bugged me was um I. 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.440 When I first signed up for a MySpace account, UM 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.320 I did have Tom as a friend. I also had 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:13.639 solicitations from all kinds of spammers almost immediately, not immediately, 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.000 but very close to it, and it it didn't seem 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.680 what I like, what I was doing with my settings 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.280 affected any of it. So eventually got fed up and 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.879 left because my Space hadn't really gotten a grip on that. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.720 It seems that I have since started a newer account 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:30.800 on my Space, I don't really use it for anything 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.400 other than to keep up with a couple of friends 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.399 that I only know we're on my space, and um, 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:37.800 you know it's it's set as private as it will go. 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.960 And no, I have not gotten anything from anybody, including 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.679 the friends I tried to keep up with. Very sorry, 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:49.480 so two thousand and six. Facebook was public in two 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:53.200 thousand eight and or two thousand nine, depending upon whom 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:58.159 you consult, Facebook overtakes my Space in traffic, yes, so 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.439 keep in mind my Space had an enormous head start 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:06.119 did but Facebook is growing faster than my spaces and 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.320 in fact, in some quarters, my Space is posting a 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.800 loss in total number of visitors. So there was a 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.879 point where Facebook was just growing faster, like both companies 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.840 were growing, but Facebook was growing leaps and bounds ahead 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.720 of my Space, and then eventually Facebook continued to grow 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.160 and my Space stopped growing, and a VEC started to 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.840 to lose members as people just let their accounts die, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:32.080 kind of like Pullett did. Um, I I can tell 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:34.320 you so two thousand eight is where we see the 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.360 Facebook start to take the lead. Two thousand eight, coincidentally 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:40.360 is the year where I received my last message from 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.720 a friend on my Space. I logged into my account 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.200 to check and the last time I received a message 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.199 from someone I actually know, as opposed to some random 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.639 update from a group that I belonged to, it was 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:57.679 two thousand eight. Well. Um. On a recent article on 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:00.879 cnet from one of my favorites net writers don Rie 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:08.359 Singer Um, they noted that currently here in my Space 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:13.240 still has more than a hundred million users worldwide. However, 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:18.200 Facebook has more than five hundred million active users and 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:24.879 Twitter has about a hundred seventy five million registered users registered, 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.520 meaning all those people and that includes all those people 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.119 that got on Twitter, posted one tweet and left and 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:34.400 never came back. Still, that's a lot of users compared 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.280 to my Space, especially with Twitter is a fledgling service 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.760 compared to my Space, fledgling because Twitter, I see where 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.280 what you did there? Um, so yes, they won't hear 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:49.320 another so that that that is the uh that sort 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.080 of brings us to where we are now, because two 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.480 things have happened recently that have put my Space back 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.159 in the news. One is the redesign. Yeah, my Space 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.800 is undergoing a massive redesign, and in fact, they're kind 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:06.000 of positioning themselves as no longer being a social networking site. Yes, 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.040 they're going to be partnering with sites like Facebook, which 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:11.359 you know, that's kind of weird. Yeah, a couple of 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:15.320 years ago would have been unthinkable. But they instead they're 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:19.240 positioning themselves as a social entertainment site. So it's going 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.160 to be kind of a portal in a way for 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:26.800 various uh forms of entertainment. We're talking about music, movies, television, 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:30.320 that kind of thing. Actually, the company competitor that immediately 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.680 came to mind was not Facebook in that case, but Yahoo. Yeah, 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.040 because that's what Yahoo does so well, serve as a 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:39.440 portal for that kind of material. Yeah. Who yeah, Who's 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.480 kind of transitioned from being a search engine to a 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.879 uh content portal. Yes, So the same sort of thing 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.240 with MySpace. It looks like it's going to specifically be 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:54.320 stuff like music videos and uh movies, television that kind 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.560 of thing. And there still will be social elements at play, 0:20:57.600 --> 0:20:59.360 and you will still be able to have a social 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.399 profile on MySpace, but the focus will no longer be 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.240 on the profile page. It will be on these these 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:10.159 pages about various kinds of entertainment. Um. I have not 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.800 received this new version of my Space as of the 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.720 recording of this podcast. They're rolling it out gradually in blocks, 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.960 and I still have the old profile based MySpace. Yes, 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.240 I do as well. Um, they are supposed to be 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:28.800 getting it out to everyone by the end of November. Yeah, 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.560 and that's when we're recording this is the is early November, 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:34.920 so we will probably, I'm sure we will go back 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:36.399 to our desks and it will be there by the 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:41.639 time that we finish. Very well, may have access to it. 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:45.000 But so we can't really talk from a personal perspective 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.080 what this new redesign is really going to do and 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.600 whether whether or not it will be enough to keep 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:56.840 my Space going after all the hits it's taken over 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:58.280 the last couple of years. And I think that kind 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:02.040 of brings us to the other item in the news 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.880 that has uh brought my Space into focus again. Yes, 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:09.240 now going back to my earlier comment on my Space 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:14.240 relying so heavily on advertising. Facebook also uses advertising, but 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.440 they have One of the things that my Space had 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:23.800 to work to emulate was Facebook's ability to integrate things 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:27.840 like games. Uh. You know, Facebook is something of a 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:33.200 games destination, casual gaming destination for many many people. Of course, 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:38.560 it made Zinga a very very uh um well, I'm 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:40.399 trying to say, trying to think of the word I 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.280 want to use here. Well, successful, yes, but I mean 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:47.639 that they're worth you would imagine not releasing you know, uh, 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:52.280 console games or PC games, but they really launched them 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:57.800 into being a very uh uh high value company from 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:01.480 Facebook alone, which which apparently if you had said that 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:05.119 backward Facebook first released the the a p I, you 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:07.360 would have said, what, No, there's no way. I mean, 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.959 this is an interesting tool for developers, but there's no 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.879 way you would ever really make money off it unless 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:16.600