The Question of the Ages: Myspace vs. Facebook

Here’s the deal, no question that Facebook has more active users now (at least in our age group of 25+) But let me share a little treatise I have had forming in my head over the past couple months. Humor me.

I enjoy computers, I’ve been called a “blogger”, I am an avid chatter on gChat, YIM, and AOL. I enjoy quickly sending messages to my friends about plans for the weekend, what we did last weekend, and simply exchanging messages to pass the time to get to the next weekend.

What do I love about these forms of communication? The same thing I love about text messaging. It’s communication that is short, simple, fast, and does not have to be synchronous. I can send Seth a message to stop cup-caking and come over for a beer, and he can get back to me when he’s done. I can text Jessica that Bon Jovi's “Shot through the heart” is on the radio and know she will laugh and I do not expect a reply.

So how does this translate to social networks? Well, I personally prefer similar uses in my SocNets as I do in my text messaging and email. Short, simple, succinct, and personal. The bulk of Myspace’s communications are comments made to another person, followed by bulletins (which include quizzes, spam invites, and random thoughts). It is quite the opposite on Facebook. Facebook thrives off of a continuous RSS-Style feed of self-proclamations. So-and-so loves this, So-and-so hates this, So-and-so is doing this. It’s like Twitter and Myspace hooked up at a party and ended up with a bastard love child that grew into an attention whore.

Really, I spend most of my time on Facebook hiding quizzes, comments, and making myself hard to find than I do reading all the crap people THINK I want to hear because they are so clever.

What happened to thinking of a person first and what you wanted to share with them later? Now when any event happens that you can fit in 40 characters or less, it’s ‘hurry to the “share” button before someone else posts it and steals the attention my witty recounting of it deserves’.

I wonder if I can turn this in to my teacher for extra credit.

KTHXBAI