Myspace Means Business
In an article from the BBC, the online community Myspace.com is talking about making some serious changes. And if they ever want my business again, these changes better come fast. However, the types of changes that are taking place might make people who could be quoted as saying “Facebook is a Myspace wannabe” really want to eat their words.
Myspace has announced that it is going to make a special platform for programmers. By doing this, Myspace hopes to be able to add applications to the profiles of its members. Sound familiar? Oh right, Facebook already has that. Facebook enacted the same plan about a year ago with impressive success. A whopping 15,000 programmers have signed up for their program and introduced applications into the Facebook community. It will be interesting to see where Myspace takes this program, and one would hope that they take it in a different direction instead of just copying line for line what has already been done.
Even so, I’m not quite sure if this step is enough to save Myspace from the wiles of the idiotic and perverted people that one can find lurking around the website. I feel like Myspace has run its course. The BBC mentioned the fact that Facebook’s 60 million members has yet to match the 200 million members that Myspace has accumulated. While this statistic is impressive at first glance, it brings up the question of active members. There are plenty of profiles on both Myspace and Facebook that have not be logged into since their day of creation. And while both sides do in fact have inactive members, Myspace most definitely has a greater percentage of them.
What Myspace really needs is more security. This once booming online community has become just another means for computers with web security programs to access porn. Instead of spending millions on petty programs, if Myspace once again wants to be taken seriously, a basic reform needs to take place.