Introduction
‘Facebook is like a fridge – you know there’s nothing there, but you check it every 5 minutes.’
Well, talk about addiction levels as far as Facebook is concerned?! It can be a problem for many; it’s been known to affect a person’s physical and mental health adversely. Further, there are quite a few who depend on Facebook to give them an outlet to voice the challenges they are facing in real life. Coming to MySpace, things are not so bad on this front as this social media platform is slowing down a bit, but Facebook has its foot firmly on the pedal, and its user base is increasing with every passing day. Since we are on the topic of users that each social media platform caters to, let’s explore a very stark difference as far as the income levels of the user base are concerned. Facebook tends to attract a more prosperous group of people, whereas MySpace users are people belonging to a not-so-affluent category.
Difference Between Facebook and MySpace in Tabular Form
| Criteria for difference | MySpace | |
| Sign up | Required | Required |
| Headquarters | Menlo Park, California, in the United States | Beverly Hills, California, US, |
| Features | Has a host of features but the same are not as many as those offered by Facebook; the following is a list of features offered by MySpace – customized profile options, Bulletins, Group MySpaceIM, MySpaceTV, MySpace Mobile, and News, Classified section, Karaoke section, Polls and forums. | Has a host of features, but the same are not as many as those offered by Facebook; the following is a list of features offered by MySpace – customized profile options, Bulletins, Group MySpaceIM, MySpaceTV, MySpace Mobile, and News, Classified section, Karaoke section, Polls and forums. |
| Advertisement | Here again, Facebook takes the lead, and it promotes itself through the following - banner ads, referral marketing, casual games, and video ads. | Has only Google and Ad Sense doing their promotional activities |
| Names to look out for | Mark Zuckerberg (CEO), Sheryl Sandberg (COO) | President - Owen Van Natta, CEO -Mike Jones |
| Type of organization | Public | Subsidiary |
| Founding year | 2004 | 2003 |
| Languages available in | 140 | 15 |
What is Facebook?
Facebook is the world's number one website for social networking. It provides a comprehensive set of features that make social networking fun and safe at the same time. These include the following:-
- Placing comments on posts by people on one's friends list'
- Sharing photographs with one's 'friends' and/or even with 'Anyone on Facebook'
- Posting links to popular web content
- Allows for a live chat on 'Facebook Messenger'
How Facebook came to be? -
February 2004 saw the emergence of Facebook; it was the brainchild of two of the most brilliant minds of the millennium, namely Mark Zuckerberg and Edward Saverin, who were pursuing their education at Harvard University. But it took almost two years before it opened its doors to the general public. Ever since 2006, the world has seen Facebook taking over all other social networking sites as far as popularity is concerned. And this includes MySpace as well.
Reasons for the popularity of Facebook –
Appeals to the masses – Facebook is one of the few social networking sites that works with a single login for use across various sites on the web. It appeals to individuals and is very popular in the commercial sector as well.
Extremely user-friendly – Facebook can be said to be very intelligible. One does not need a technical mind to be able to use it. It has a very simple sign-up process, and the process of posting on the site is child's play. It is not just a medium to find friends from school/college days but goes a step further. It has a huge following in the business sector as well. Businesses use it all the time for advertisement purposes; because of Facebook they get to reach the exact audience they are targeting.
Entertainment on the go – On Facebook, it is as simple as ABC when it comes to sharing photos, texting, posting status and uploading videos and even sharing one's feelings. It can, therefore, be inferred that Facebook is one fun place to be.
Filtering adult content – No adult content is allowed on Facebook. If any user is found flouting the adult content policy, he/she is immediately banned from using the site.
Excellent privacy tools – On Facebook, a user can control who sees his/her posts and uploads. In a nutshell, it can be deduced that Facebook has taken care of anything and everything that comes to mind when interacting on a social media platform.
What is MySpace?
Strictly speaking, MySpace is a social networking platform. People using this service can add others doing the same to a 'friends list'. Other than the fact that these connections will last forever, one gets a chance to follow the blogs of these connections; messaging and chat services are also available. Furthermore, the 'Explore' link lets you connect with people with shared interests. Another important feature of this service is the 'Update' option. With the help of this tool, one can look for the specific sex of a specific age and the marital status of a specific country. It connects you with people who match your exact requirements.
Pioneer in the field of Social Networking -
Myspace (MySpace was the original stylized name for the social networking site) was founded by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe in August 2003. The company was the first of its kind (in the field of social networking) to reach people on a global scale. It has left an imprint for all times to come on pop culture and music and even technology. Companies like YouTube have a lot to thank Myspace for the way it helped them during their early days. Not just YouTube but a lot of the success of RockYou and Photobucket can be credited to Myspace. The latter two benefitted from the developer platform that Myspace helped them create. In its heydays, that is, from 2005 to 2009, Myspace was a force to reckon with, and it prided itself on the fact that it was the biggest site for social networking in the world.
Reasons for the popularity of MySpace -
Myspace owes its popularity to the poor performance of its contemporary Friendster in 2003, the latter was the industry leader then, and because of a complication in its technology, it started to lose users. The users were faced with several issues, which included slow speed, DNS errors and loss of accessibility to the site. The founders of Myspace didn't even have to put in too much effort because word spread quickly of the inefficiency of Friendster. It was observed that musicians and their fans started using Myspace in huge numbers. This happened primarily because it was felt that Myspace could reach large audiences. The founders were smart enough to jump on the bandwagon, and thus MySpace Music was born, and their profits went through the roof.
Main Differences Between Facebook and MySpace in Points
User profile of Facebook vs. User profile of MySpace –
High school students were the first users of MySpace, while Facebook was used primarily by college students. Facebook users tended to visit professional networking sites like LinkedIn, whereas that does not hold for MySpace users. Another area rather very important area where Facebook takes the lead is the member base. Facebook (400 million members) has more than twice the membership than that of MySpace (150 million members).
Difference in Features
That Facebook and Myspace are truly different can be understood if one were to explore the features that they provide to the members. Facebook far exceeds MySpace in the sheer number of features it provides. To name a few – The Wall, which is where posts and messages are shared. Then there are the following – Photos, Status, Pokes, Gifts, Messages and last but not least - Tags. Further, there are provisions to share videos, games and even ads. MySpace lays more emphasis on building and modifying the user's profile; to achieve this, there is a provision to access readymade themes. Facebook has none of this. MySpace goes a step further by providing 'emoticons' to express a range of moods. Bulletins, Group, MySpaceIM, MySpaceTV, MySpaceMobile and News are the other distinct features that MySpace has.
Music
MySpace is big on music and allows a variety of features to help budding musicians. The Myspace page allows the uploading of music files. SNOCP helps MySpace users to put their music up for sale. Taking off from where MySpace music left, MySpace Records facilitates the hunt for hidden talents. Furthermore, there is a playlist and archive section. Facebook lags in this regard, though uploads of music and video are allowed but they are not half as advanced as in the case of MySpace.
Here also, MySpace wins hands down. In 2009, MySpace started providing its members with an email address, which came with unlimited storage capacity. Sadly, for Facebook, there is no such service being offered.
Cultivating relationships vs. Self-promotion
The first of the 2 points mentioned here can be attributed to Facebook, while MySpace lacks in this regard and is more focused on expression.
Privacy controls
Facebook is stricter in this regard as compared to MySpace. Members of Facebook control the viewership of the content they post or upload down to a T, which is not exactly true in the case of MySpace.
Outreach
Facebook has impacted more people all over the world than MySpace. As mentioned before, it is the most popular social networking site in the world. MySpace's day in the sun, though not over, yet it lags behind Facebook in this regard. One reason for that might be that MySpace of late focuses more on Music than networking.
Conclusion
A good way to end this article would be to understand where users end up after they are done with their Facebook and MySpace pages. Well, it has been observed that users of MySpace tend towards photography and multimedia websites; these would mostly be YouTube and Photobucket. The members of Facebook do tend to visit YouTube as well, but since a large number of them are college students, more often than not, they do like to check out educational sites. Now, a funny fact emerges. If you work out the statistics, a large chunk of users leaving Facebook head for MySpace, and the reverse is also true. This brings us to the conclusion that there is room for both to grow together since it is quite obvious that internet users have the capacity for not just one but a few social networks, where Facebook and MySpace are strong contenders.
