myspace

Internet usability demands centralisation

May 8, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Normally internet usability refers to the design and placement on a website to allow users to easily interact, but I firmly believe there’s an important new item which is hugely important in making any website, widget or service usable.

And that’s allowing centralisation.

Now I’ve moved to my own domain, I’m trying to update two years of links – on social networks, blog directories, wikis, forums, websites, other people’s blogrolls etc, etc, etc. And I’ve realised exactly how much work is involved in changing my url on all those sites. And that’s the same for all the major events in my life (such as the birth of my son recently), or even keeping minor details up-to-date and relevant (Do I still like the same music and films as I did when I filled out my Facebook profile, or the last time I updated Myspace?).

More and more people are online, and although the numbers of promiscuous profile creators are small compared to those who are happy with one site and profile, that’s changing. And it will change more and more as niche networks and groups form and grow – and advertisers etc see more value in targetting those niches.

It’s where ideas like Google Open Social work, with an API that works across numerous websites/networks. And although I don’t think it’s always suitable to limit every internet user to one ‘real’ linked ID, I do think it’s now essential that anyone collating information from internet users looks at the best way to allow that information to be updated from one central place. You might lose one or two clicks from someone being forced to update, if they see enough value – but the flipside is it’s too much hassle to update so people don’t bother coming back at all – ever.

And for something like a domain change, it can mean a website stops sending me any referrals, and drops even further off my radar.

That’s why something like Last.fm works, and why so many more users utilise its’ ‘scrobbling’ technology to track the music they listen to, rather than using it to find new music etc. If you’ve got a site which has a field to list music, don’t make me fill it out. Let me link to Last.fm, or Pandora. Or create somewhere that I can update once and feed out to all my various outlets. That’s one reason why Twitter works (I’m @badgergravling btw). A Twitter update can be done via a variety of desktop clients or other sources, and then end up on my blog, on FriendFeed etc, etc. Sites like FriendFeed are tackling the problem from the aggregation perspective, and allowing a huge range of inputs to be put into one place – but where’s a system for allowing me to make a huge range of outputs to all the relevant destinations without traipsing for hours around the net?

Myspace MP3 store is a huge threat – but not to Apple

April 16, 2008 By Dan Thornton

There’s been a lot of discussion about whether the new Myspace Music store will pose a threat to the Itunes and Ipod Applopoly. But I’m a little surprised by Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel being so ready to dismiss the threat to streaming music services.

The growth and success of Itunes, added to the image of Apple products and services, gives it a fairly secure position at the moment, and it would take something pretty revolutionary to overturn that. Certainly I’ve encountered enough people who have lost music collections from Ipods yet won’t switch to an alternative to realise Apple devotion works across all their products and services. And enough alternatives exist, even including supermarkets.

However, plenty of people already use Myspace to listen to individual tracks by their favourite artists, and offering a streaming radio service without limitations would make this option extremely attractive. And would seriously threaten several services.

I recently heard a stat regarding Last.fm which is pretty believable. Apparently just 25% of Last.fm users actually visit the website, with most using the ‘scrobbling’ tracking software, and possibly the downloadable radio player. It makes sense as the Last.fm site is hobbled by 30 second clips, and limits on the amount of times you can listen to individual tracks by specific artists. And although it does a reasonable job of finding similar artists, it won’t let you play the specific inspiration before sending you round the houses, which leaves the similar artists without any context. The arrival of Myspace could push Last.fm to concentrate on scrobbling and displaying widgets, which will either lead to new and interesting revenue streams, or could put a real chokehold on the traditional display advertising on the website.

Meanwhile Pandora.com is still on a U.S only lock down. And when you’ve taken something away from users, it puts you in a far worse position than when you’re launching for the first time. There’s no news on any re-opening to non-American markets, and in the meantime, along comes a site already extremely popular, and proposing free music streaming. Suddenly the non-U.S. world forgets Pandora exists. That’s going to limit expansion!

And then you have a myriad of small rival streaming services, like Meemix, which has a plethora of great add-ons and ideas around their music service – but has a corresponding amount of niggles and flaws, as if the ideas exceeded the ability to deliver in a simple and user friendly way.

Myspace can be far from user friendly – but enough people are already familiar with it and accept the problems to mean they’ll jumping all over new music options. And various research shows that the early adopters who jumped ship to Facebook etc are likely to still have a Myspace profile and pop in occasionally, so a fair few profiles could be fired up again to explore a new music option.

At the end of the day, it could be really good news for consumers, as Myspace plans to offer DRM free downloads (possibly pressuring others to follow suit), and it could prompt some serious thoughts about giving more value to users in the streaming market, and some serious attempts to differentiate and move ahead. It’s not often I praise and support Myspace, but for once their plans have my vote.

AOL buys Bebo for $850 million

March 13, 2008 By Dan Thornton

I don’t have time to start hypothesizing, but thought this was worth sharing asap. AOL has announced today it has entered into an agreement to buy Bebo for $850 million.

Bebo’s one of the biggest social networking sites in the UK, number 1 in Ireland and New Zealand, and is number 3 in the US. It’s also more focused on the early and pre-teen market, and has also been developing video channels/promotions, including Kate Modern (currently the most successful web TV show).

There’s more info on the purchase as BusinessWire.

My quick response is that I have an element of fear about a Myspace type stagnation due to a purchase, but coming a week after opening up AOL Instant Messenger, hopefully AOL has thought carefully about how to oversee Bebo without destroying what has made it successful. And it’ll be interesting to see what efforts they might make to change the monetisation of the site – something social networks have traditionally struggled with despite huge predictions of ever-increasing advertisement spending.

As long as I don’t get bombarded with cd’s to set me up on Bebo, I’ll be happy.

Are Myspace and Facebook in decline?

February 22, 2008 By Dan Thornton

It’s not surprising there’s been a lot of response to the Nielsen Online findings that both Facebook and Myspace have dropped around 5% in UK audience figures for January 2008, month-on-month. Bebo also dropped 2% for UK users MoM for January.

It’s worth noting that the findings come from monitoring UK usage at home and at work, meaning schools, universities and internet cafes are not included. (Would the drop be contributed to by the fact school pupils and students were home more during December)

Interestingly it also coincides with a presentation I attended which claimed a significant portion of people will stick with whatever social network site they first got involved in – and those that do migrate tend to still visit their former social network home, but in less and less frequency.

And the final interesting facet to this is the continued growth of Twitter.

This all fits somewhat with my own habits recently, as I’ve reached a critical mass on Twitter, and I find myself constantly wanting to check the conversations and links being added. Meanwhile there is slightly less relevant and interesting content surfacing on Facebook in relation to annoying application invites for novelty items.

A number of reasons for this spring to mind. Twitter is used incredibly easily on mobile, and strips out anything extraneous to ‘the conversation’. The publicity of a supposed paedophile threat and more realistic concerns over employers checking profiles could have affected sign-ups/usage. Possibly some people have simply decided the profile led social networks aren’t for them, or didn’t see how it can be useful. Or perhaps a time of possible recession has meant people are more conscious of how they spend their time at work – if social networking hasn’t been blocked or banned.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next few months, but some things I do know:

Facebook dropped 5% MoM, but was up 712% YoY (UK)
Myspace fell 9% YoY (UK). Bebo was up 53% YoY
None of those figures mean you can ignore those sites.
Those who interact the most, who give and receive the biggest value in terms of interaction, will continue.
The niche networks are where growth is predicted.
Even with a 5% drop, the market leaders still have a huge potential crowd, as long as they are interacted with in the right way.
Twitter will continue to grow for a while yet, as it’ll start moving past the techy early adopters. Particularly around quick and easy mobile updates, which can then appear on Facebook/Myspace/Blogs etc.
If the social networks develop again, users will be drawn back. It’s all about developments and friends as reasons to visit.

Social Networks could be good for your mental health…

January 27, 2008 By Dan Thornton

I recently read an article on psychologist Oliver James, and his book defining the ‘Affluenza‘ virus – the physical and mental illnesses that can come from constantly putting too high a value on money, possessions, appearance and fame.

James claims that the fact English-speaking nations are more Affluenza-stricken, and have rates of mental illness twice as high as nations in mainland Europe. (Interestingly, books I’ve read about Swedish culture, for example, point to the idea of ‘lagom‘ – doing just enough to do well, without being ostentatiously super-successful)

So, and here’s the interesting bit, if constantly being bombarded with superstars on TV can lead to Affluenza-stricken people comparing themselves unfavourably to TV characters, then Facebook etc could actually boost their self esteem and mental wellbeing.

Because, after all, Facebook puts you in touch with your peers, equals, and friends. So you can compare yourself to people who are on an equal footing – and suddenly things don’t seem so bad. (Obviously it doesn’t work quite as well if you start stalking superstars).

So, ignore the superstar accounts set up by PR companies, and start connecting with people who you share something in common with. It’ll make for more meaningful conversations – and make you saner…