Myspace are always in the news, a year ago most of the news was positive, and the last few months they have been receiving a backlash of bad press. The recent decision from Myspace to block certain ‘widgets’ (Revver, Imeem, Hoopa) are not doing them any favors for the future of Myspace.
Apparently working for Myspace is like musical chairs, it will not be too long before the co-founders Tom & ‘the other guy’ packs up & leaves once their contracts are complete later this year.
I think Myspace/News Corp need to sit back a moment to look at who & what made it what is it today – the users. Myspace arguably is the face of UGC (User Generated Content) well they helped make the term became ‘cool’. Being able to mold a webpage & fill it with goodies was all the rage until Myspace turned sour and realised this type of behaviour can not be good for their revenue model.
To make the widget-sphere work under Myspace’s new controlled environment I would put forward the following:
- Companies with a widget must contact Myspace for widget approval
- Each vendor agrees to a set of Myspace (fair use) terms & conditions for inclusion
- Myspace review the widget & approve for distribution
- After approval Myspace can monitor the widget to ensure it does not break the T&C’s.
If a vendors breaks the contract, then ban them.
I think Myspace needs to look at the positive effect of this current widget-madness we live in. Myspace traffic has flattened over the last 6 months compared to other high profile sites. While new comers like Bebo are rising rapidly, you will notice on the Alexa graph that Bebo traffic has pointed north since they announced Bebo Widgets (an approved set of widgets to appear within Bebo page guidelines).
Social networking is about keeping in touch and having some fun while doing so (or fooling around behind your girlfriends’ back if thats your thing!). The ying must go with the yang or else people will move to another site that offers all they need without restrictions.
Peter Davias Marketing Manager
Contact me: peter.davias (at) 7digital (dot) com
May 26, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Although I’m on Myspace (.com/mistrust), I’ve still got major concerns about my music being on there – rights, etc., but you highlight a really important issue here. As with all things “Murdoch”, Myspace seems to be ignoring all the latest Web 2.0 and social networking trends, and going their own way instead.
I get the impression that the management want to ignore all the widget-swapping etc that’s going on all over the web, hoping that it’ll all go away and musicians will just stick to posting their tracks and spread the Murdoch empire with automated friend requests. I don’t know how many “friends” I’ve come across that have never even posted a single blog comment, and have no idea what a blog is……
May 29, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Facebook have taken the right method of implementing widgets across their ever growing social networking site. We will see other social networking sites follow this trend set by Facebook very soon!
July 26, 2007 at 7:33 pm
myspace layout stealer
then again, the opposite could be true
February 28, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I love your site!
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