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Myspace vs. Facebook


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Nobody uses Myspace anymore, do they? I've left and come back to it a couple of times. I can never stay away because some musicians (Eef Barzelay, for one) are really good about updating tour info and stuff on there and so it's convenient for that but I have noticed a decrease in the number of "actual friends" using it lately. In the past year, it seems like the number of people who actually post new photos, memes, or whatevs on Myspace has decreased and the number who do so on Facebook has increased. What happened? I just go wherever the people are (which is mostly facebook for now) and have no real preference for either site. Why do YOU prefer Facebook?

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Guest Speed Racer

Why do YOU prefer Facebook?

 

Epileptics can use it?

 

Seriously, the fact that you could customize your MySpace page to flicker, shimmer, and make backgrounds and foregrounds all but unreadable has always been what kept me from the site. I like how simple and unalterable Facebook's layout is. If people could change their page layouts, I'd likely spend much less time there.

 

Additionally, I joined in 2005 when it was exclusively for students. I enjoyed being on my college's network, and primarily joined for the purpose of keeping up with my friends at school. Since you had to use your full name, it was much easier to search for people (I don't know if I'm an idiot or what, but I was never able to search for people on MySpace). I also enjoyed getting in touch with high school friends.

 

So there.

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I don't see the two as the same type of animal.

For me, Facebook's purpose is my friends' status updates, notes, links to web pages, video postings, and (to a lesser extent) events. MySpace, whose layout is just impenetrable, is maybe about a song starting when you open the page then you spend ten minutes waiting for all the graphics to load and why am I here again?

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I’ve switched primarily to Facebook. And for a while, it was great getting back in contact with folks I haven’t spoken with since like, high school, until it quickly became apparent that the reason we lost touch, is because once we no longer shared a common enemy, i.e. everyone else in high school, we just didn’t and do not have all that much to talk about – and so then all further correspondence just feels forced and/or awkward.

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Facebook is kind of a bucket of shit as an application, but it at least restrains people's urges to make things all sparkly.

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Epileptics can use it?

 

Seriously, the fact that you could customize your MySpace page to flicker, shimmer, and make backgrounds and foregrounds all but unreadable has always been what kept me from the site. I like how simple and unalterable Facebook's layout is. If people could change their page layouts, I'd likely spend much less time there.

 

Additionally, I joined in 2005 when it was exclusively for students. I enjoyed being on my college's network, and primarily joined for the purpose of keeping up with my friends at school. Since you had to use your full name, it was much easier to search for people (I don't know if I'm an idiot or what, but I was never able to search for people on MySpace). I also enjoyed getting in touch with high school friends.

 

So there.

 

Exactly. Facebook's trump card around '04/'05 was only students with a .edu address could use it; Myspace was something for teenyboppers. It was a big deal when your university got invited to join the network, and in turn you could only view profiles of people at your school. You didnt have to worry about being friended by your aunt/boss/neighborhood creep/Rush Limbaugh. The layout was way cleaner back in the day too; you didnt have all these inane games and advertisements cluttering up space (with the exception of "poking", which was nothing more than online flirting). Facebooks soul existence was to figure out what parties were occurring over the weekend, and then posting photos of the debauchery afterwards to embarrass your friends. Simpler times, I suppose.

 

And yes, Myspaces search functionality was and remains one of the absolute worst in the history of the internet. Right behind Allmusic.

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I never tried myspace.

Facebook is ok, I did reunite with an old friend (after a falling out in college, now we chat almost everyday).

I have noticed that the numbers are dwindling though, people are not nearly as active as they were a few years ago.

Seems like no new people are using it, I haven't had a friend request in ages.

Anybody on twitter? I don't know of anyone who is on there, I just follow a few bands that I like.

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I have a twitter account, which I purposely do not have sent to my phone. I could not deal with numerous tweets thoughout the day.

 

Just in the past couple of weeks, I've been taking a break from facebook. I've only been on to update my Visual Bookshelf, which I really do like, it's a handy little way to keep track of what I'd like to read next (much better than the stack-o'-books system). I can't even keep up with e-mails anymore, trying to go on facebook every day was making me nuts. I'll still stick my nose in occasionally, but it was becoming a chore.

 

Also, yeah, younger people are probably already at peak saturation on facebook, but people my age (and older!) are still joining at a pretty good clip. I still get lots of friend requests from old school friends, and relatives who live in distant places. I like that aspect of it, it's nice to be in contact with some of them. Although again, I just can't be on there as regularly as I was at first...

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I have a myspace page. Two actually. Can't remember the last time I looked at either of them.

 

I used to have a Facebook page, but I cancelled it because I didn't understand all the poking and other nonsense.

I think when someone pokes you, that means they want to POKE you, or you them, depending.

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Guest Speed Racer

I have noticed that the numbers are dwindling though, people are not nearly as active as they were a few years ago.

Seems like no new people are using it, I haven't had a friend request in ages.

 

I think both of these perceptions might be a reflection of how Facebook-y your e-posse is. I get a few requests a month, and my News Feed is VERY active.

 

I recently received a friend request from a very abrasive professor in college. He would ask for students' thoughts, basically just to murder them for the thrill of being right - shooting fish in a barrel, essentially. Perceived himself as very high-brow, aspired to be an esteemed academic but couldn't warm to the administration on account of his king of the hill attitude. So he friends me, and he turns out to be the biggest Facebook whore ever - full profile, posting status updates and links hourly if not more frequently. Very, very omglolzbizarre.

 

I really enjoy watching how the "older" crowd (folks who have only used Facebook post-college) treat it as a networking tool. I guess I was expecting him to use it as a "cuter" Linkedin.

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I think both of these perceptions might be a reflection of how Facebook-y your e-posse is. I get a few requests a month, and my News Feed is VERY active.

 

I have a dozen or so "friends" that clog my newsfeed, updates constantly: what they are drinking, what activities the kids are doing, what the dog just ate. I honestly don't care about what most of them are doing, & I assume they feel the same way about my updates.

I am post-college - I used to just use it as a tool to catch up with old friends and to see what my exboyfriends look like.

I'm an insurance Broker, I guess I could be using it as a networking tool.

meh.

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I have a dozen or so "friends" that clog my newsfeed, updates constantly: what they are drinking, what activities the kids are doing, what the dog just ate. I honestly don't care about what most of them are doing, & I assume they feel the same way about my updates.

I liberally use the "block" feature, to hide either individual applications (I don't care about Mafia Wars, and no, I don't want to participate in a Food Fight, thanks very much) or some friends' entire streams of nonsense.

 

I've also made a decision that 200 friends is plenty, especially considering that that's way more than I have in real life. So now, if I get friended by someone I really want to be friends with, I'll go in and delete one of my old friends. I feel a little bit bad about that, but most of the people I'm deleting either don't use facebook on a regular basis, so it's not like that's the only way we're keeping in touch (or we're not keeping in touch anyway, so again, what's the point?). Or, they are facebook fiends (see "blocking" above), who have hundreds and hundreds of friends and probably won't even miss me anyway.

 

This is getting harder, as I started with high school acquaintances who were never my friends in real life anyway, friends of friends, some of whom I'd never even met, etc. Now I'm making some harder choices, but I still like the idea of having a manageable number of FB friends. I'll probably end up regretting some of these cuts somewhere along the line, but for now, it's kind of liberating to realize I don't have to be on-line friends with everyone who asks.

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I was using the "get less info on these people" feature, but it limits to 20.

So I had to pick the 20 most annoying friends I had, then thought "why don't I just delete them instead?" problem solved.

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the time it takes to load a myspace page and hearing the music before the page loads, shits me. i only use it to keep up with my favourite bands are up to.

 

with facebook, i've discovered relatives in Europe that i never knew i had - i even discovered i'm an uncle! - all this in 2009!

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the time it takes to load a myspace page and hearing the music before the page loads, shits me. i only use it to keep up with my favourite bands are up to.

 

with facebook, i've discovered relatives in Europe that i never knew i had - i even discovered i'm an uncle! - all this in 2009!

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