MySpace and Facebook are popular online social networks. After creating an account with both of them, a few differences are clear.
User Profiles
MySpace emphasizes music and entertainment. A user's homepage (or profile) is easily customized, and advertising banners cover the site. Facebook, on the other hand, is organized by school and workplace relationships. Customization of user profiles is limited to a choice of standard applications, and the advertising is more subtle. It's important to remember that both MySpace and Facebook create an online record of a user’s activity.
Privacy is a different challenge on each of these sites. In fact, the idea of MySpace privacy is almost a contradiction in terms, since the goal is to collect as many friends as possible. Some Facebook user profiles also show hundreds of friends, but in general, the site promotes caution. Overall, there is a more subtle sense of belonging based on existing real world relationships.
Online Advertising
The advertising on Facebook is more subtle too. In addition to modest banner ads, there are optional applications on the site: quizzes, movie ratings, music, etc. In every case, a user must give permission for the application to access profile information. Sometimes there is a small fee for services (such as sending virtual gifts). The system requires members to make constant choices about the information they want to share.
Compared to Facebook, MySpace advertising has a flashy, billboard style. At times, the pop-up ads and videos become more of a focus than online friends. There are entire user profiles devoted to promoting products and celebrities. Some of them are official and many are just fan sites, but all MySpace profiles can be customized using hypertext markup language (html). So in a way, users put up with the online advertising in exchange for a greater amount of self-expression.
Anderson and Zuckerberg
Since the 1999 launch by the online advertising company, eUniverse, the “face” of Myspace has been Company President, Tom Anderson--although News Corporation(NewsCorp) bought eUniverse in 2005. An October 9, 2006 article in Business Wire describes "Legal Challenges to News Corporation's" acquisition, but “Tom” remains every user’s first MySpace friend. A few continue to believe, as most did in the beginning, that he started MySpace on his own.
Given Facebook’s organization is based on school and workplace relationships, it’s not surprising the model for the site was conceived at Harvard College. A student named Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004. More recently, in the August 31, 2007 Herald Tribune, John Markhoff describes a “Tangled History of Facebook.” Despite such controversy, the site has expanded membership to places of employment and geographic regions. Unlike Tom on MySpace, Zuckerberg has a standard user profile.
The different styles of Anderson and Zuckerberg set the tone for their popular online communities. Both sites provide options to ensure privacy, but MySpace emphasizes collecting new friends while Facebook focuses on existing relationships. Facebook is for people, not their personas. It has subtler online advertising and standardized user profiles. MySpace, on the other hand, is a party. The banner ads are entertainment, and everyone’s a star. These differences between the two sites are clear. It’s mostly academic.
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