Screenshots And Details On Upcoming MySpace "News Feeds"
A Reuters article earlier today gave a few details on MySpace's upcoming "new feeds" product (which is what Facebook calls their similar product launched a year ago. We spoke to MySpace and got a much deeper look at the product, as well as screenshots of how it will look.
Context & Ripple Effects
MySpace is playing catch-up on the defining interface of the social graph era: Facebook launched its News Feed a full year before this product, and Reuters broke the news of MySpace's equivalent today, with TechCrunch adding screenshots and deeper detail. The move lands mid-ramp for News Corp's property — weeks after the MySpace Platform opened to third-party developers in October, and days after the company unveiled its self-serve hyper-targeted advertising network.
The timing is awkward for Facebook, which is weathering user revolt over Beacon sharing purchase data with friends while its own feed model becomes the thing rivals copy. The pattern echoes the spring, when MySpace framed news aggregation as a social play with MySpace News — each move conceding that Facebook's structural choices, not MySpace's portal instincts, set the template.
First-order effects
- MySpace users gain an at-a-glance stream of friends' activity where none existed, closing the single most-copied feature gap between the two largest social networks.
- Facebook loses feature differentiation it had held since late 2006, forcing competition onto its platform and apps rather than the feed itself.
Second-order effects
- The feed gives MySpace's newly announced hyper-targeted ad network more inventory and behavioral signal, making the November ad announcement and this product two halves of one monetization push.
- Advertisers weighing Facebook against MySpace now face near-parity on core social surfaces, so pricing power shifts toward whoever can prove better targeting or engagement.
Third-order effects
- If feeds are table stakes everywhere, the durable battleground moves to openness and data portability — the terrain Facebook's platform controversy and Beacon backlash have already put under scrutiny.
- Cory Doctorow's argument circulating today that social networks carry built-in self-destruct mechanisms suggests feed-driven exposure could accelerate user churn at whichever network over-shares first.
The trend: Social networking is consolidating around the real-time friend-activity feed as universal infrastructure, with competition shifting from features to platforms, targeting, and trust.