Abandon Nest

MySpace is the 2nd most visited site on the internet today in terms of pageviews. It’s home to a lot of people and is impossible to ignore in today’s “new media” society.

If you’re not familiar with MySpace, here’s the basic gist. MySpace.com is a social networking website that allows you to make a profile, customize it, and have “friends.” Last year, it was sold to Rupert Murdoch for a large sum of money so “old media” definitely thinks it has value. However, would it benefit
you to become part of the craze?

If you’re not already a MySpace member, I have to encourage you to stay far far away from the site. First, I believe the website itself has no value as a true networking tool. Sure, you can have 5000 friends, but how many do you actually know and how many will actually provide you with any value? My guess is the number is close to 0.

In addition, because MySpace users are allowed to customize their pages to their heart’s content, you end up with some of the most garish, disgusting, user-unfriendly, and atrocious pages on the internet. Picture annoying music, terrible colors, and unreadable text and you pretty much have 90% of MySpace pages. Also, it takes about 10 clicks to actually do anything on the website. No wonder it’s second in pageviews to Yahoo!

As you can tell, MySpace has almost zero use as a networking or marketing tool. Of course, there are a few exceptions. If you’re a female model or willing to portray yourself in compromising situations (without being pornographic), then
you’ll be popular and could end up with benefits. Barring that, I’d say you’re out of luck.

If you want a good user experience, great design, and excellent organization, MySpace is not for you. It’s a mess, quite frankly. I could not recommend MySpace to anyone, for any reason, ever. MySpace will not be a marketing or networking coup for you, so if that’s what you’re after, try LinkedIn or Facebook instead.