Myspace Walked so Social Media Could Run
MySpace was created in the year of August 1st, 2003 by co-creators Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe. Between their prime years of 2005–2008 MySpace reached an estimation of about 250 million users at the time. Co-founder Chris DeWolfe started his vision of Myspace during his last year of college. For his final project DeWolfe created a website called “Sitegeist” which consisted of a melting pot of different websites’ features and made an “all in one” social media platform. His project received an A, and was the starting point in the creation of Myspace. The social media platform was sold to News Corporation for the modest price of $580 million.
The original purpose for Myspace was for musicians to create their platform and be discovered from their music. Myspace provided the tools for musicians to actually upload their content to their profile pages in order for it to be accessible to anyone. Since a lot of media has been shifted to the digital side it became more easy for musical artists to be discovered since their content was just a click away. Musical artists like Arctic Monkeys, Calvin Harris, and Adele all got discovered through Myspace.
Overtime it became more catered to individual users to give them the opportunity to design and create a profile page specifically for that user. Therefore, every profile is unique giving the user the freedom of self-expression. However, Myspace was not as user friendly as social media is today. Users had to self educate themselves on how to learn the fundamentals of coding. Without knowing how to code the profile page would look bland and boring. Coding unlocked how to design and create any digital platform therefore progressing the future of online mediums.
I first joined Myspace in 2006 and had no idea what it was, how it worked, or what the purpose of it was. When I noticed more and more of my peers were talking about it I decided (with parent permission) to dive in and understand what the hype was all about. Throughout my experience being a Myspace user I became the go to person on how to edit people’s profile. Since Myspace was not user friendly I put in a lot of hours and research on how to code profiles. I realized why it was so appealing to me is because it gave me a creative outlet that did not require any specialty skills. Since I did not have a cell phone at the time and email wasn’t a popular messaging system Myspace was the best way for me to communicate with others near and far.
Myspace also started the trend of how many friends, likes, and comments an individual could accumulate. This trend sparked individuals to create content for the general public in order to gain popularity. Therefore, I would spend countless hours taking and editing photos for people to like and comment on. The more comments and likes I received the better I felt. This created the snowball effect of users wanting to become what was called back in the day being “Myspace Famous.” Today people would call it being a social media influencer. Myspace created the space for people to rise to fame by being discovered through social media.
So what happened to this iconic social media platform? Simple, Myspace was created by the entertainment industry where Facebook was created by technology geniuses. Facebook was created a year later after Myspace and sparked competition between the two platforms. The downfall was Myspace never evolved or progressed. Facebook took advantage of the opportunities presented to them from third parties to further progress their platform. A good example is Facebook started working with Farmville which increased Facebook’s popularity. Where Myspace stuck to their guns and tried to progress on their own. During their downfall a last attempt was made in order to try to regain popularity. Myspace shifted its platform back to their roots of music in hopes to be back on trend but sadly failed.
Although Myspace’s reign was short lived it will never be forgotten. Whether it was spending hours editing your profile or taking someone off your top 8. Myspace set the stage of what the future of social media would be and was a force to be reckon with.
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