No place for MySpace

Back in 2004ish, I remember joining MySpace to see what all the fuss was about (I wasn’t yet on Facebook because it was meant for students only at the time). A lot of my friends were on MySpace, and it was a nice way to share photos and write comments on each other’s pages.

However, I soon began to dislike the service, especially after signing up for Facebook. MySpace’s user-view was cluttered, as I preferred viewing your page as others see it, like on Facebook; I got a lot of spam; and eventually MySpace just stole all the features of Facebook, e.g. feeds, tagging, etc., making it lose its uniqueness.

That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that MySpace is in a lot of trouble financially, as reported in today’s New York Times. I’ve always described MySpace as hanging out at a virtual bar; for example, you can meet new people (a bit better than you can on Facebook) and you can listen to some music (bands can set up decent pages pretty easily, plus other artists’ songs are available for free).

But that’s about it. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would recommend setting up a MySpace account for a client, other than a band. See, bands can upload their songs, post their tour dates and interact with their fans. Even still, I would probably lean toward using Bandcamp instead.

Did you have/do you still have a MySpace account? I just have one to squat on a particular URL.