Why we need to care about Myspace still ...

Remember the "in the mirror, look how hot I am Myspace picture?" Notice how we haven't been seeing as many of those lately? Think there's a reason?
No, people haven't found a magical cure for their insecurities ... we're all still neurotic.

I've spent a lot of time researching the sudden shift in traffic on Myspace earlier this year. Why did people just wake up and say Myspace sucks? By March, Myspace equated to complete social irrelevance. The word Myspace was only spoken either before or after the following words:
spam/ so many perverts/ so many friend requests/ stalker/ you still check that?/ so slow

We need to look at Myspace as a great learning experience. Like the expression clearly states, Myspace was too much of a good thing.
The graphics were too much, causing pages to load incredibly slow.
The fact that they did not put a limit on the amount of "friends" any user could have made Myspace a breeding ground for so many bots creating a phenomenal amount of spam. Let alone, all the creepsters that wanted to "be your friend." - what ever happened to "stranger danger?"

Myspace gave the user everything they wanted and as with most things in life it wasn't what we needed. By the time they tried correcting certain issues they had realized it was too late. The overwhelming growth of Facebook and the birth of Twitter was too much to be ignored.

However, one thing that is commonly overlooked, is that the death of Myspace created a great shift in people's view of social media in general. When people created Facebook profiles, they suddenly had more respect for the way they represented themselves. There were no cheesy, glitzy graphics, you had to actually write something in your info tab.

You weren't given the option to fill it with pictures of drunken times with friends, and modeling pictures that no one really cared about. All of the sudden you were reading things about people, rather than waiting for videos to load of their favorite band from high school.

For the first time we saw social media responsibility. Some pictures that were deemed acceptable on Myspace were suddenly not okay for Facebook. Why is that?

You could say that was because Facebook was initially only open to college students with a valid college email address - and "educated" people prefer to show themselves in a certain light, but I'd have to beg to differ.

Myspace represented a time in our culture of excess and greed. People wanted more, more, more, and Myspace said okay as long as they could figure out a way to make money from it. Now being in a recession, people want to reach out to old friends, and co-workers, either looking for a job or some sort of genuine human interaction. That is something Myspace never provided; when did Tom ever offer to cook you dinner? The recession created not only a great hole financially, but socially as well. People stopped wanting to horde and instead desired a connection, content, or comfort. When we experience lack in one aspect of our life we look for it in another.

Shameless self promotion was SOOOO 2007, creating the cardinal rule for businesses exploring their social media options - it is about engaging the user. Telling them to "check this out! I think you'll really like it" has been done. Give me a reason to want to check out your company's page. Find that connection, offer them content and it will give them comfort. Social media is just an unbiased reflection of society. Observe the sociological trends so you will never become a "Myspace," and don't worry, you'll stay afloat with Facebook, they're always wanting to know what's on your mind ...