Facebook: Going Down the Drain?

In light of Tim's post below about Facebook's new changes, etc. I began to give more thought to our favorite website's current status.
It really appears to me at least, that it's becoming over commercialized, and this is ridiculous.
Making everything fan pages? Including our personal information? I'm already aware that as a business, Facebook has to market each of us, individually, as a profitable item (which is already creepy), but making the content of ourselves another way for corporates to attract money crosses the line in my mind. What will they do next?
And as I commented on Tim's post, Facebook now works with Bing's search engine. Bing search results will appear in addition to whatever else does on Facebook's search. All of this really boggles my mind.
Facebook saw what happened to MySpace after it was taken over by FOX. Too much stuff going on chases users away. Zuckerberg and his Harvard buddies should know better. I think they're definitely going in the wrong direction. They should remember, now more than ever, that their simplicity is what made their site so appealing.
Perhaps it really is true that no social media can last forever. Because to be honest, if Facebook keeps up its consistent changes, new policies, etc. then I don't know how much longer it will be around. It's definitely driving me crazy already. It's likely that something better and simpler will come along and we'll jump on the bandwagon for that and forget Facebook forever.

Old & New Friends ~ Chapter 6

During my highschool years, MySpace was it. Everyone was putting up new pictures on a daily basis. Friends commented on each others pictures and commented on their profile. Everyone tried to find a profile layout that portrayed one best, then finding the songs to go along with their profile. To keep one’s MySpace profile up to date and interesting, one was on it each day. One tried to find old grammar school friends and new friends. The good aspect of MySpace is that I was able to find new music.

Myspace Music Page: Truth on Earth

After reading Levinson’s segment “New New Media Provide Medicine for Cyberbullying,” I was very interested in listening to the Truth on Earth band mentioned in Chapter 6. Although Levinson includes the band’s Web page, I wanted to see if the video was accessible on YouTube and it wasn’t. I then searched the band on Myspace Music. It wasn’t any surprise to me that the band had an official myspace page. This is a clear example of Myspace’s “especially revolutionary” music pages (Levinson, 114). I’ve had more luck finding better sound quality music on Myspace than Youtube. Many obscure artists only have live videos on YouTube whereas Myspace music pages provide selected music, lyrics, tour information, pictures, etc. This is not to say that Myspace music pages are better than YouTube when listening to music. Both sites certainly have their advantages. In my opinion, Myspace music pages offer more information but YouTube is a quicker search.

The song “Shot with a Bulletless Gun” that Levinson mentions is available on the band’s Myspace page for anyone interested in listening to it. The song really addresses the issue on cyberbullying. My favorite line is: “Back in the day was a time - when life was simpler and - folks came face to face to deal with their differences. I'm told - by philosophers that change is a good thing except when that change hides out in a room brewing evil ideas that belong to a criminal mind.” There music is also a perfect example one of Levinson’s previous ideas that new new media can be used to change and better the world by addressing such issues like cyberbullying.

Myspace Music

Personally, when I joined Myspace, it was to keep up with all the news and events going on with my friends. At the time, Myspace seemed to be the easiest platform to communicate with my friends and set up social gatherings. Myspace always had a music section. I remember there was a search engine for music on myspace and a way to put music on your profile in the form of a song or a playlist. However, I did not realize how popular music became on Myspace.

As Levinson mentions, Myspace enabled recording artists to build an audience for their music before they contacted an agent or a record company. Although many of these amateur recording artists do not make it into mainstream, it still gives them a forum for their music to be heard. Levinson writes about Ebony Moore and James Harris who have not reached mainstream but their Myspace pages have recieved over 100,000 views, an impressive feat. Like Moore and Harris, the band Truth on Earth, also not mainstream, has a Myspace page and their music is available on Amazon and iTunes. Levinson also discusses Kate Nash and Lily Allen, popular musicians in the United Kingdom who have gone mainstream. Levinson finally mentions Sean Kingston who I've heard, but I never realized he started out on Myspace. Kingston has had some successful hits in the United States, setting an example that musicians who start out on Myspace can eventually hit the big time.

Why MySpace Went Out of Style

When I think of MySpace, I remember how my friends and I, when we were Juniors in high school, were as obsessed with it as we are now four years later with Facebook. In 2006, being on MySpace was the cool thing to do. I'm sure that others in the class can relate to my feelings on this. From the time we were all in high school, MySpace was at its peak. Everyone was on it, and we all talked about it during school. This was the time during which, Facebook had its policy of only allowing college students to join its network, and we were locked out of it.
Though Facebook did open up its content to everyone, which MySpace did all along, why has it continuously become less of a dominant presence on the web (at least in popularity)? Today, most of us (younger people) assume that we're only members on Facebook and that MySpace is merely an out of style fad that's embarrassing to bring up.
Though there are many factors that may have contributed to MySpace becoming second to Facebook, one of its most significant ones was its loss of "cool factor" with the younger generation. When MySpace was at its peak, at least for me and I'm sure for others, Facebook was kind of a prize we would win once we went to college. The fact that we couldn't get on immediately before the policy changed had us holding our breath until the moment we could. This I think, had tremendous impact on our age demographic's preference for Facebook. And once we got on, and the more Facebook was intellingent in its manner over the past few years of making it more and more user friendly and entertaining, the more we preferred it to MySpace and the more likely we would emphasize its superiority to other generations, older and younger.
This consequence, of having the most technologically capable generation raving about Facebook above all others has certainly had an impact on our parents' generations and our younger siblings' too in believing that Facebook has the edge over MySpace. And Facebook, perhaps more so than anyone else, has us to thank for that.

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Chapter 6 of Paul Levinson's book, New New Media, tackles the social "behemoth" of Myspace. When discussing such a social medium, the idea of friends comes up. In the chapter, Levinson appropriately raises the question of what is a Myspace friend? Is it a misuse of the word?

My interpretation of "friends" online is that when discussing social media like Myspace and Facebook, we all must redefine the word first. A friend in social media isn't necessarily someone that you see often, call, spend time with, or even have your trust. Instead, an friend in this realm is someone that shares common interests, share common friends which are online or in person, can be people you went to high school with, or just met. Therefore, the use of the term "friend" begins to have a new scope and meaning when we are using it with regards to those in our social media community.

The MySpace Cafeteria

I only had a MySpace account for a few weeks, the summer before freshman year of college while I waited for Fordham to send me my e-mail address (back when Facebook still required a college e-mail domain for registration). When I first switched over to Facebook, my immediate reactions were very similar to many of the points Professor Levinson brings up. I thought MySpace was much more customizable, a "one stop social media cafeteria," and found Facebook to be very restrictive in terms of its offerings. I think that is where MySpace and Facebook took divergent paths: MySpace became a place for people to express their individuality through music, blogging and other add-ons, while Facebook became very mainstream.

Both MySpace and Facebook are capable of being sites of unfortunate internet activity like cyberbullying and cyberstalking. While I agree with Professor Levinson that "there is no law or enforcement that can completely protect us from our worst instincts, expressed in new new media, old media or anyplace else," I still think there needs to be a system in place to control harassment through these social media sites. Middle school aged kids think they are adults and to some they may seem like it nowadays, but many still do not have a sense of what is right or wrong. Being slammed into a locker or having your lunch stolen may be "character building" and a part of growing up, but there are always adults to physically intervene in those situations. When cruel messages are put on a kid's MySpace wall every single day, there are not necessarily adults who will pick up on it. As social media becomes part of growing up, educators and parents need to teach kids appropriate behavior and values for both the "real world" and internet.