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Friendster was my first social network invitation. I joined, I linked, I invited friends, I had a good time. But just as I was beginning to have fun, it turned into a local nightclub hotspot. I had to wait in a long line to get in, another long line to get a drink at the bar, and even a longer line to relieve myself in the restroom. The page delays and unresponsiveness were the surefire buzz kill and like my local bar, I stopped going. And so did others.

I had recently posted an entry about using social networks as a marketing channel, and have been spending some time on MySpace. It is slow and to make matters worse, sometimes buggy. This is because it tries to be the grand-daddy of all social networks - the uber video/photo/audio/people/blog sharing network.

Newer networks have emerged and created a loyal following by serving just 1 niche. YouTube for video, Last.fm for music, Facebook for people. With each MySpace page getting more and more resource-heavy, it is already detracting users to these “cleaner pastures.” Sure it has the largest audience, but MySpace’s challenge lies in keeping that audience active and engaged.

For both, owners and users, MySpace needs to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up lest it falls to its iminent Friendster-like demise.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 @ 9:25 am on the category Tech Churn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.