MySpace
I feel that MySpace has lost its luster big time. This website definitely took the world by storm at one point. It was so popular that in just two years it had grown from a brand new company to one worth $580 million dollars (Purchased by News Corp in 2005). In 2006, it had surpassed Google as the most visited website. But then along came Facebook and knocked MySpace off its perch. MySpace was sold last year for $35 million dollars to Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake. This means that Rupert Murdoch lost over half a billion dollars on the investment. The reason why some of this occurred had to with News Corp allowing MySpace to grow stale and antiquated. It has a cluttered interface and it seems geared to musicians. There was never enough personal information captured other than your location and whatever you entered into your user profile. At one point, it seems like the owners had given up on developing for the website. It just seems too cluttered for me and there is no real visual appeal to it. I’m also not a musician so it doesn’t attract me as much. I like music but not to the point that it is all I do or listen to. It’s time has passed.
Twitter is much bigger than I expected. They have a current user base of about 500 million. That is a ton of people. Now I understand the influence people have on Twitter from reading the articles in this class. When you have this many users, the influence you have on causes, products/services and anything else one supports or rejects can make or break certain companies/organizations. If millions of people consider one person’s word gospel, you can count on the fact that companies, music stars, athletes, etc…, will be careful not to ruffle their feathers. I was not too enthused initially about the 140 character limit because I do tend to be long-winded in my comments so I didn’t think that was enough. It just felt like I was sending short texts over the Internet. I didn’t find it appealing at all. After playing with it for this class, it grew on me. The ability to shoot short messages back and forth with family and friends is pretty neat. When I saw the capabilities to keep in direct contact with celebrities, political figures, large companies or any entity that was otherwise inaccessible to the average person, I was impressed. There has also been a number of important news that showed up on Twitter even before the news heard about it. In one of the articles we read for class, many lives in Haitiwere saved due to the twitter folk taking a stand against the Air Force in where they wouldn’t allow necessary food, drink and medical supplies in the country of Haitivia a Doctors without Borders cargo plane. This unified approach from the Twitterati helped make a difference. These are some of the things that pulled me towards Twitter, plus the fact that the interface is nice, simple and clean. It is somewhat visually appealing. You could easily keep up to speed with the Twitter app on your phone. It also has the capabilities of posting pictures, running a business, sharing videos and raising money to name a few. This company has a great product. Twitter is definitely much better than I expected.
Facebook is the king in the Social Network field right now. They have a user base of about 1 billion people. That is an astronomical figure. Facebook is the most appealing to me out of all of the Social Networks. It’s definitely the one I use the most. You can access from any computer, phone or tablet (the list goes on and on). This is definitely the most comprehensive of all the websites. It seems to contain all of the components that most of the major social networks have. You can send short messages (or long ones) in your status updates (like Twitter), you can post music and promote artists (like MySpace) and you could post tons of photos so people could press the like button or comment similar to Instagram. Facebook seems to have the whole package. The largest appeal to me is that almost everyone has a Facebook so you could keep in touch with family and friends, no matter where they are. I could find long lost family members, friends, teachers and co-workers, which would have taken me years if I used previous old search methods (asking person after person where so and so is, or acquire a phone number). I could now find these folks in a matter of minutes if I do the right searches. I have also been able to organize events and family gatherings through Facebook. I also utilize Facebook to run a business because this allows us me to stay in touch with my partners and our customers/potential partners. This website is the most comprehensive to me because I have access (for the most part) to my“friends” personal preferences, photos, likes and dislikes, personalities and comments posted on photos or “walls”. This is a gold mine for small & large businesses alike because you have access to all types of information that will allow you to cater to all walks of life. It also has clean look to it in all of its forms, PC, Tablets, Smart Phones, iPhones or wherever else you access the website from. I have to be careful to monitor my time on the site because I use it for business and pleasure. People on the outside looking in may think it’s just for pleasure and they feel ignored. I think this is a problem for many people. That is why Facebook is so popular.
Last but not least is Instagram. I did not see the value in this App at first. When I started doing some research, I noticed that they have a user base of about 80 million strong. It seems like it came out of nowhere because I wasn’t really on to it. It just seemed like a place where you just post pictures and people like them or comment on them. That is what the main point of it is in a nutshell. When I finally logged on and created an account, I saw how cool it was. There are a number of interest adjustments you can make to your pictures and link them together by assigning a common hash tag to them. This allows you to build a collection of pictures for pleasure or for business. You can promote clothing, venues, restaurants, the list is endless. It is extremely easy to use for the most part but I do find it a little confusing at times. I don’t like the fact that you can’t scroll through a person’s pictures with the finger swipe. You actually have to close each one and then open a new one. That does get annoying after a while. The presentation is also not as clean as some of the other Social Networks. There is also no personal information stored on your profile this is not too helpful for most businesses or advertisers. It is a niche market that they have done a great job in. I know I stated some negatives on this but I actually enjoy Instagram a lot. I will us much more often now that I’ve gotten my feet wet with it.
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