MySpace Is Sooooo 2004

Whatever company is first to market with a revolutionary product will always maintain 60% or more of the market share. All the other companies that follow will simply be playing catch up. At least, that's what I was told by a very wise, very wealthy marketer once. While I have a tendency to agree, we've certainly seen many instances of late where that just isn't the case.

For example: MySpace. MySpace was the first major, successful, mass-market social network. Yes, there were others, but nothing picked up quite like MySpace. So, I would claim that MySpace was the first revolutionary Social Network, because it fundamentally changed how we interact with people on the Internet. But something has changed again, and people just don't care about MySpace anymore.

There was a time where everyone linked their MySpace pages all over the place. I, and many others, couldn't go a day, much less a few hours, without logging in the ubiquitous website. There was even a time, as recent as early last year, when MySpace was the most visited website on the Internets. But now if you log in and check your friend's pages, you'll see that most haven't been updated in months, and more haven't even logged in for just as long if not longer. People have stopped caring about MySpace. But the question is why?

I think it's easy to point to the meteoric rise of Facebook within this same time frame as the reason. What about Facebook attracted the MySpace crowd though? Was it the shift from college social network to everyone social network? Or the addition of Apps? I'm sure it wasn't Beacon by any stretch, but what other things attracted us to Facebook?

Speaking for myself, Facebook just feels better and smoother with a cleaner interface. It did get a little out of hand with the advent of Apps for a few months, but since the roll-out of the new layout, I think it's become sooo much easier to navigate and connect. To top that, the iPhone Facebook App is quite good, while the MySpace App is basically just functioning. What about you? Have you found yourself making the transition to Facebook over MySpace? Was it an organic shift that your didn't really think about, or was it a conscious choice? Are you still actively using MySpace? How in the world did they go from hands down Market Leader to Second Place, in what amounts to a year's time? Let us know in the comments, or as always, shoot me an email.