TheWayoftheWeb

Content and Digital Marketing Specialists

myspace

The most powerful networks…

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It’s easy to debate who are the biggest players in social networking, whether you’re a Myspace fan, Facebook obsessive, or quoting the Latin, Asian, Indian or Brazilian audience of Hi5 or Orkut. (Incidentally, I signed up for Orkut today, completing my membership of the big four and I have to say, it feels a bit unfinished…seems like it’s all back end, no front end.)

But there’s one social network which could be more influential, if not pervasive. There are times when I take it for granted, but Xbox Live is truly one of the great networks of our time.

With the box next to my TV, I can play games on and offline, and watch DVDs. I can also download demos of games, new content for existing games, and complete smaller arcade games, including the likes of Sonic The Hedgehog and old arcade games.

When payment is required, it’s a one button confirmation, billed to my credit card with pre-paid points.

And the same points can be used to purchase downloadable videos etc, with pay-per-view films coming to the UK soon.

If I’m playing a different game to my friends, one button brings up a list to message them, or invite them into private voice chat, whilst I can continue to play. And I can compare the achievements of all my games, to those of my friends

And I can listen to custom soundtracks from CD’s, or my portable hard drive, at the same time as doing all of this.

15 years ago (Making me feel old), this would have seemed about as likely as jetcars, as I carried my 486 to someone’s house for a LAN party using ethernet cards, lots of shouting, and eventually some four player Doom.

And how many hours have I put in? I know there are at least two games which have claimed my time of at least 50 days each…And another 15 or so games on my played list.

I know the service is a walled garden, with a small window looking out at Windows Live Messenger, and a skylight from which a feed can escape to sites displaying gamertags, and even blogs written by Xbox 360s. But, like Facebook, it’s so comfortable, that trying to escape is like trying to rouse yourself from a comfy armchair after a Sunday roast dinner.

Dear Mr Murdoch: Re Myspace

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Dear Mr Murdoch,
When News Corp bought Myspace, it led to a few raised eyebrows, but considering the amount of traffic the site created, it seems like a forward thinking move.

And at the very least, most users hoped the resources and funding accompanying a $580 million acquisition might result in improvements in reliability and usability – even if it meant more advertising etc appearing.

Instead we have a very, very slow move towards ideas like displaying the mood of a user, or instant messaging, and the sight of you trying to offload something you don’t really know how to use.

Before you go, can you please make it so an ‘Unexpected Error’ doesn’t occur when I try and approve friends requests, access my Inbox, or in fact, try and do anything? I was willing to refresh endless pages before the likes of Facebook contained everything I need to actually connect with other people, but now I’m logging into Myspace less and less. Even private equity firms try and turn things around before selling their acquirements on to new owners.
Yours
Badger

You don’t make real friends with Social Networks

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Researchers at Sheffield Hallam University have surveyed social network users, and discovered that you’re unlikely to make real, close friends, as reported on the Guardian
Despite the huge lists of contacts you can accumulate, the number of real, close friends is around the same as you’d have offline, and will tend to be people that you’ve met in real life.
Facebook, Myspace, Bebo et al can allow you to message 100s, or even 1000s of friends (In Robert Scoble’s case), but the actual number of close friends is likely to be about……five.
The reason is that humans tend to only really trust people after face-to-face interaction.

That figure may change as users become more trusting in connections made via social networking, but certainly it suggests that the social network would need to result in face-to-face meetings for real trust to be formed.

There’s also research that suggests those people who interact most successfully online are the same people who are most social-minded offline.

With all this is mind, it suggests that simply joining a social network and adding friends etc will simply maintain your existing contact list. The only way to use them to gain new contacts would be to go to the next level of participating in groups and discussion boards etc, utilising the now old school mechanisms of chat rooms and forums.

Certainly I’m a member of a huge range of social networking sites, but the only new friends who have become in any way close friends have come from two very focused forums, and one of those groups came together to attend a real life meeting.

The one reassuring thing is that it means those who put in time and effort will still gain more from social networking than those who just sign up to be part of the crowd…which is the way it should be.

Even spies can benefit from the wisdom of communities

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It appears that even the American Intelligence community feels the need to contact old school friends and connect with glamour models, as it’s set to launch A-Space, a Myspace style community, according to the Financial Times.

“Thomas Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, believes the common workspace – a kind of “MySpace for analysts” – will generate better analysis by breaking down firewalls across the traditionally stove-piped intelligence community. He says the technology can also help process increasing amounts of information where the number of analysts is limited.”

Obviously they haven’t used Myspace, or seen the emergence of Facebook as the preferred social network of those that actually use them for communication, rather than spamming. I’d love to be able to search on the ‘CIA’ network on Facebook, or maybe the ‘Classified’ network.
I’d also suggest they’ll need to be very careful about security, but the comedian in me can only imagine how it’ll look to have Uncle Sam as your first A-Space friend, rather than Tom.

I just hope they don’t get too much criticism for building a ‘walled garden’.

The Facebook rush…

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Well, the votes are in, and it seems Facebook is now the heir to the Myspace generation.
I knew people were using it in preference to general social sites, but increasingly it seems as if it’s also replacing the likes of LinkedIn for business use.

The reason seems to be that despite the attraction of niches, Facebook has enough mass to allow you to connect to a lot of people fairly quickly. It also gently restricts you to concentrating people you actually know, or had lost touch with. And it’s simple to use, to include pics and videos, and to install countless interesting applications.

I did worry the Apps would get distracting, but as long as I can avoid the more frivolous ones, there’s some interesting stuff. So far I’ve added an Instant Messaging App, a Twitter App and the feed from here…who knows what’s next…

In the meantime, I’ll still have my old profiles, and I think there’s still mileage in LinkedIn…

So if you want to drop me a connection:

Badger on Myspace
Badger on Facebook
Badger on LinkedIn
Badger on Twitter

EDIT: 10:19pm:

I just found that my StumbleUpon addiction also has a facebook app. Dammit.

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