How Did Facebook Trump MySpace?

It wasn’t that long ago that Facebook and MySpace were direct competitors vying for your social time. How did Facebook not only steal the social networking crown but become so big it is now used by 1 in 13 people worldwide.

MySpace Decline

MySpace originally launched in 2003. By 2006 it was the largest Social Networking site on the planet, but by 2008 is was already in decline.

There are several factors to consider with this fall. MySpace’s purchase by News Corp, or the three year US$900 million advertisement deal with Google which restricted the amount of non-advertised space on its pages and effectively limited the user web page redesign features. So what did Facebook do right while MySpace made crucial yet detrimental decisions?

Site Design and Customization

Part of MySpace’s initial appeal was the ability of the user to customize their page layout. MySpace had an original template, but more often than not, regular users discarded this template for backgrounds, fonts and colours that more accurately reflected them. It was a promising idea, and spoke to the user’s need to represent themself as an individual, but ultimately, it played a large part in users turning away from the site.

While MySpace accounts were finding creative new ways to splash their page with colour and text, sometimes garishly so, Facebook was rolling out a clean, user friendly design that offered a consistent user experience filled with updates that MySpace simply couldn’t manage.

MySpace’s extreme customization choked the life of the brand. To succeed, social networking must create at least the illusion of connectedness. MySpace pages were too individual, in some cases it became difficult to identify a MySpace page from an individual http site. Facebook, on the other hand, was easy to recognise, and easy to replicate.

A Globally Recognised Brand

Facebook is now a globally recognised brand, in the vein of Ford or Nike. The user experience is similarly uniform. A Facebook page is instantly recognisable whether it belongs to Sally Smith of Oregon or Raj Patel of Bangladesh, and with over five hundred million active accounts worldwide, this recognition is an important marketing tool.

Ultimately, this was the hook that propelled Facebook to that status it enjoys today. Whilst MySpace floundered under a crippling advertising deal and an established user base too familiar with customization, Facebook was offering a solid, consistent experience that spoke to prospective account holders of a true social network, under a single banner.

Whilst Facebook remains a globally recognized brand as well as the social networking giant of this era, the company has also diversified its social reach offering dating sites applications thus teaming up with online dating corporations.

Like other globally recognised brands Facebook delivers an uncomplicated experience, at least for most users. Initially popular with the college crowd, who wanted to move away from a teen and tween obsessed MySpace to a more ‘mature’ or ‘professional’ experience. This reputation spread easily, and due to the lack of page customization, the uniform experience meant it was easier for users to sign up and get a page just like their friends. No flashy fonts or tiger print backgrounds, just part of a single tribe keyed into a larger network.

It’s a strategy that has worked before. Apple employs a similar tactic to impress upon its customers the user friendly experience of its product over other consumer electronics. What remains to be seen is how long can Facebook maintain this experience? Will people want to be homogenized forever, or is there a desire to individualize? Time will tell.

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