Who Will Kill MySpace First?

In last week's Yi-Tan conference call, we discussed MySpace.  A major theme in the chat was that MySpace was killing itself. 

Recent press stories have centered on MySpace being a den of prurient activity.  With 67 million users, it seems unlikely that there would be zero prurient activity, if you think about it.

MySpace's reaction to this has been to delete some accounts with improper activity.  "Some accounts" meaning tens of thousands.  The buzz is that MySpace has "hired an adult", which means that the perception is growing among MySpace users that they are being monitored, chaperoned, or otherwise Big Brothered.  No one wants a community without freedom of expression.

So the recent chatter about AOL building a MySpace Killer (Techcrunch 1 and 2) is a bit interesting.  The questions center not around "Can AOL build something?"  But rather around the following:

1. Will young people attach to a large company like AOL when they already distrust authority and power?
2. Will AOL learn from MySpace and groups before it who gave people freedom and then took it away?
3. If they have learned from these previous mistakes, how will they express that to potential users?
4. Does AOL see the incredible trend of fickleness that users have?  AOL may build a next big thing and be popular for a year or so - how will they retain users?

Brand loyalty does not exist in the world of on-line communities.  The common perception is that once you hold users in an on-line community you build up a natural monopoly because the user base will be unlikely to switch services because their community is on the system.

Mass defections from Friendster to MySpace show this simply is not true.  The cost for change is measureable, but groups can transition.  New gadgets on new sites, or the promise of freedom from an annoyance on an existing site, can outweigh this cost of platform transfer.

MySpace is also unique in that it's a social site.  People there are socializing, not networking.  This is an important distinction because the cost of networking is your time from doing other things of value.  Your cost of socializing is not being lonely.  So, social pressures to switch to a different social platform can be much greater than the costs of switching a business networking platform.  The dynamic MySpace is certainly not the stodgey LinkedIn.

So my advice to AOL would be:  Focus not on unseating MySpace, Focus on creating a community site that gives users the freedom they demand - and be prepared to defend that freedom when the inevitable bad press arises. 

Photo:  Keith Richardson

T-rati:  MySpace, AOL, social software, community_indicators
 
 

Comments

[Laurel Papworth]

"So my advice to AOL would be: Focus not on unseating MySpace, Focus on creating a community site that gives users the freedom they demand - and be prepared to defend that freedom when the inevitable bad press arises."

Excellent point! Couldn't agree more. Why on earth didn't MySpace just initiate a ranking/rating system like SlashDot? The one where you can set the level you want to see sites, and everyone votes on what level they should be. Put the control back in the hands of the consumer and you keep loyalty. Too simple huh?

[Jim Benson]

Absolutely.

As in many areas recently, fear drives intollerance and the assumption that people cannot self-govern. MySpace is a microcosm, it seems.

[Chuck Norris]

This didn't intrigue me at all. Your opinions are not that of mine, ergo, they are wrong. So who is going to join our task to fight against myspace?