Once-fading MySpace undergoes youthful reincarnation
BEVERLY HILLS — Facebook thumped it, and Twitter threatens it as a source for entertainment news and real-time searches. — But MySpace, nestled in the entertainment capital of the world, thinks it can survive — even thrive …
Context & Ripple Effects
The decline arc is long and documented: back in October 2006 the Washington Post already found teens treating MySpace as so last year, and by late 2007 it had slipped to middle-of-road as Facebook surged ahead. A January 2008 counterpoint still argued MySpace was winning on raw traffic, but by May 2009 the Guardian recorded Twitter passing Bebo and LinkedIn while MySpace headed south.
What changes with this piece is the framing: rather than contesting Facebook on the general-purpose social graph, MySpace is repositioning around its Beverly Hills base as an entertainment destination for a young crowd — a niche defense mounted while Facebook prepares a location-sharing rollout and Twitter presses into real-time search.
First-order effects
- Facebook has overtaken MySpace as the dominant social network, and Twitter now competes with it directly as a source for entertainment news and real-time searches — both confirmed threats MySpace must answer immediately.
- Facebook's planned location-sharing feature, due the following month, extends the rival's lead on exactly the engagement surfaces a youth-oriented MySpace needs to hold.
Second-order effects
- Advertisers chasing the under-25 demographic face a two-front market: a general-purpose Facebook graph plus a real-time Twitter feed, forcing MySpace to monetize entertainment affinity rather than network size.
- Content owners and artists gain leverage as platforms bid for entertainment discovery — the one category where MySpace's brand equity still gives it a claim against Facebook and Twitter.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, social networking bifurcates into general-purpose identity platforms (Facebook) and real-time information streams (Twitter), squeezing mid-size networks like MySpace into vertical niches — music and entertainment being its most defensible ground.
The trend: Social networking is consolidating around scale winners while once-dominant networks survive by retreating into entertainment and interest-based verticals.