{"id":270,"date":"2006-10-30T14:46:49","date_gmt":"2006-10-30T21:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=270"},"modified":"2007-11-13T10:28:01","modified_gmt":"2007-11-13T17:28:01","slug":"myspace-going-down-the-youtubes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=270","title":{"rendered":"MySpace: Going Down The YouTubes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an article last April, I predicted<\/a> the decline of MySpace as a result of over-commercialization and desertion by bored users:<\/p>\n

“These examples of commercialization foreshadow precisely how the culture of MySpace will become tarnished and unappealing. Its members will come to feel disinterested and exploited.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Now the Washington Post is catching up with me<\/a>. In their story this past Sunday, they interviewed MySpace users and found that many of them have gotten over thier initial addiction to the site. Not only are they and their friends deleting their profiles, the ones that stay are spending much less time there. One former user summed up the downtrend by stating simply that, “I’ve grown out of it. I thought it was kind of pointless.”<\/em><\/p>\n

A MySpace spokesperson, in the mold of Baghdad Bob (“What American troops?”<\/em>), discounts these reports as anecdotal and cites the growing number of new profiles. There was no breakdown of whether these where net<\/em> new profiles, or how many of them are advertisers of other commercial accounts.<\/p>\n

I continue to maintain that MySpace has less than two years before it joins the ranks of Friendster has-beens and Rupert Murdoch’s brilliant<\/em> acquisition will be seen as another dotcom folly. The deeper folly may be the notion that giant media conglomerates like News Corp can glom onto a trendy counter-culture craze without extinguishing its coolness.<\/p>\n

YouTube is going down the same road<\/a> (or series of tubes) now that it has been swallowed up by neo-megalith, The Google. There was speculation prior to the acquisition that once YouTube had a deep pocketed parent, the copyright-wingers would crest the hill with their army of lawyers. Last week YouTube agreed to remove 30,000 videos at the request of a Japanese publishers group. And now, Comedy Central, demonstrating their obtuse short-sightedness, has ordered all of its content off the site. Even before the buyout, YouTube ratted out a user to the Viacom Police<\/a>, who set upon said user forthwith with a lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The beauty of the Internet is that it’s a fluid environment that allows people to flow to the services that provide the most value and allows communities to find their own level when their needs are being fulfilled. MySpace has been working contrary to those goals by expanding intrusive marketing initiatives and cracking down on content bandits. YouTube faces many of the same risks. And since Big Media has always considered these upstarts a threat, they may not be the least bit troubled by their waning prospects, even as they devour them. But so long as the Internet’s flow is unimpeded, people will continue to seek and find new ways to set information free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an article last April, I predicted the decline of MySpace as a result of over-commercialization and desertion by bored users: “These examples of commercialization foreshadow precisely how the culture of MySpace will become tarnished and unappealing. Its members will come to feel disinterested and exploited.” Now the Washington Post is catching up with me. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-socialmedia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-4m","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":136,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=136","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":0},"title":"The Fox Befouling Of MySpace Has Begun","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/25\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"It was inevitable. Rupert Murdoch's purchase of MySpace was going to destroy it. Everyone knew that. Now the evidence is at hand and on display in the New York Times. The decline begins with monetizing everything that moves. With Fox as the parent company, MySpace becomes just another mainstream vehicle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":450,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=450","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":1},"title":"MySpace Seeks Peek Into Voting Booths","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/29\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In another assault on personal privacy by News Corp. and its progeny, MySpace has announced that they will begin offering a \"viral fundraising tool\" to candidates for president. The stated purpose of the tool is to allow members to make contributions to the candidates of their choice. On the surface\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":145,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=145","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":2},"title":"MySpace – The Predator’s Feeding Ground","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/12\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"News Corpse readers know that I am not a fan of MySpace. But they will also know that I am even more opposed to government intrusion into civil liberty and free expression. Consequently, I find myself in the awkward position of defending MySpace from the congressional thought police. The truth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Censorship"","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=56"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":195,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=195","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":3},"title":"Deleting Online Predators – An Update","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/28\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In May, I wrote about The Deleting Online Predators Act (PDF), a bill designed to ban access to social networking sites from schools, libraries, and other federally funded locations. Unfortunately, the language was so broad that the bill would end up banning everything from MySpace to Wikipedia, and everyone on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":947,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=947","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":4},"title":"Facebook Catches Up With MySpace","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/16\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In a market share race that is mirroring the cable news ratings battle, Facebook has caught up with its once much bigger rival MySpace: \"Facebook hit the mark in April 2008 by posting 115 million unique monthly visitors. Myspace has maintained similar traffic numbers for the past year, but Facebook\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":183,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=183","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":5},"title":"The MySpace World Domination Conspiracy","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/28\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, here it is. This blows the lid off of the totalitarian overlords once and for all. The mother of all conspiracies and MySpace is at the center of it. Go back with me to February 2002, when the existence of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) Office at DARPA was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}