DISQUS

Rick Hancock · 1 month ago

Here's the lesson all corporate media types -- especially Rupert Murdoch -- needs to takeaway from the MySpace free fall: Stop trying to make the Internet, specifically social media, be and act like TV and newspapers. You build value by building an audience bound by common interests. You can't keep trying to hit everyone over the head with the same marketing and advertising messages.

MikeHolmes · 1 month ago

Rick,

That's a good point. I personally would love to see a study done on WHY Myspace has fallen the way it has. I personally won't give up on it...it could make a turnaround...but we'll have to wait and see

Chris · 1 month ago

You mean the millions of glitter filled pages and garbage everywhere actually hurt the site? Who would've thought?

RFT · 1 month ago

I have only visited MySpace 3 times, and each time, I wanted to do an intervention on my relatives. I can't for my own well being, go there, and find out that I am a judgemental Boor.-

gwoodard · 1 month ago

Even all the while facebbook can't play music.

shurandythode · 1 month ago

Not doing good at all. Hype won't last long :)

Erik · 1 month ago

It's obsolete. Either it meets the competition or it becomes history.

barringtonarch · 1 month ago

i think myspace is going to become history, they need to milk it why they can, then get out.

dancingbear6 · 1 month ago

myspace let itself get a bad name by allowing shady activity and not having a clear focus

Jeff · 1 month ago

You can also say the same thing about Facebook, with the Privacy Policy issues they faced (multiple times)...this is just fact of life for the web, once the hype dies down for a web service, the traffic either falls off or flatlines. I would say that Myspace had/has more focus than Facebook. Myspace was originally for music, and continues to focus on that aspect of their community. Facebook was originally a social network for college students only, now it doesn't know what it wants to be...Twitter...Friendfeed....Anything that's popular basically, that's not really a clear focus at all. I think Facebook's focus now is to just remain relevant long enough to get their VC's a viable exit.

TWlTTERLOGOS.com · 1 month ago

Not shocking at all... This could easily happen to facebook 5 years from now too... I remember so many sites from back in the day... xanga, friendster, asainavenue

recklesslover · 1 month ago

asianavenue? haha wow.

Mateusz Michalik · 1 month ago

Myspace isn't all 'Hype' shurandythode, it had a strong presence for a long time, but its clunky interface and over abundance of teen users that have moved onto other networks is going to see them eventually fall off the radar completely.

Mark Jonson · 1 month ago

I said it before and I'll say it again: site-wide rebuild. It's what allowed Facebook to succeed, as the first rebuild was necessary to rewrite PHP code and rearchitecture the backend. MySpace already missed the boat (apparently the one that isn't sinking) but if they could get their site looking a bit less cluttered and clean up the messy code that's probably still driving the backend operations they could likely turn things around.

Carolyn Chan · 1 month ago

It might already be too late. *looks over the cliff*

Amar · 1 month ago

I'm not expecting it to decrease rapidly in popularity, but with Facebook on Twitter on the rise, MySpace's reign as King of Social Networking may be coming to an end.

WYSIWYG · 1 month ago

Facebook is next... the net is not reserved for monopolies, so of course social sites will peak and fade. Eventually social sites online will fade altogether and something more exciting will feed the masses of attention seekers. App's where you can tweet, facebook, blah blah from a panel in your web browser will become the norm - then... something else. Nothing new to learn in this exercise when "History repeats itself". Same old shit, another consumer.

emily margrit · 1 month ago

You just described Google Wave.

WYSIWYG · 1 month ago

hahaha and a few others I believe ;-)

Sandy · 1 month ago

It's already happening. Blastoff Communications is launching a customizable homepage with email, news source, FB, etc incentivized with a shopping mall with cash-bank rewards. I'm interested in feedback as I'm working on the pre-launch. Suggestions and constructive criticism welcomed: www.blastoffcommunications.com.

Robert Basil · 1 month ago

Sandy, nice spam.

successfully · 1 month ago

Saw it coming ever since I switched to Facebook.

janice513233 · 1 month ago

out with the old in with the new....I never eally liked myspace, seems at the time if you were not a celeb, or a musician no one read your blogs....twitter is equal that's why I love twitter

Rachel · 1 month ago

Had to delete mine, couldn't take it anymore. Privacy controls were lacking and their homepage continually assaulted my eyes with blaring and distasteful ads and graphics.

Websalad · 1 month ago

Yeah I agree, the interface is majorly clunky... But I also think users are getting sick of being inundated with friend requests from aspiring bands. The number of requests I get per day from bands is ridiculous... And the result? I decided to boycott MySpace.

I use Facebook, and nobody bothers me. It has a much more genuine element to it.

Facebook dominates.

Brandon Kleinman · 1 month ago

That stat doesn't necessarily correlate with a loss of relevancy. Myspace has an opportunity to basically become a destination for entertainment. Their band sites are the standard for streaming and tasting new music on the fly, as well as learning about tours and finding new information from the acts. If they can find a way to copy the same format for movies and television and then connect these entertainment properties with people who want to communicate with them, they can be a powerful force from a revenue generation standpoint and still maintain high membership numbers.

Own a vertical, the biggest kid rarely is the strongest.

Paula - Affiliate Blog Online · 1 month ago

I guess everything has its day. I wonder how long it will be before Twitter goes the same way?

Review Unit · 1 month ago

its editable...its tweeting all around...FORMER KING...

russ · 1 month ago

NING IS NEXT!

Dennis Jernberg · 1 month ago

I saw the end of MySpace coming when Murdoch bought it. That was when the service jumped the shark.

mattrs · 1 month ago

Didn't know that, but that's a good reason to boycott it....Murdoch can go to hell.

Jerry Zambrano · 1 month ago

Sad to hear. It's not surprising to me at all. I have stopped visiting MySpace some time ago (prolly closer to the beginning of the year.) One thing that I like about some of the other emerging or newly established social hubs, is the ease of contacting friends, followers, members without having to make an effort to navigate.

MySpace has really become the "VHS" vs "DVD" of social communities. It isn't keeping up with any of it's social network competitors. It does however try to incorporate more complex networks and social groupings, but their attempt is just that. An attempt.

Wishing them luck, but I'm gonna still try to avoid visiting them due to my disinterest in their obsolete form of communication.

J.

adamhirsch · 1 month ago

At least it's a gorgeous looking cliff ;)

Geordae · 1 month ago

Surprisingly I appreciate Myspace book now more than ever, it's still good resource for finding a particular band that you like, etc.

Facebook, is still the easily the best in my opinion.

gabriel1970 · 1 month ago

I haven't used Myspace for almost 2 years since I switched to Facebook, and I am not a web developer, so I may be misinformed - but Myspace does not have to fade away if it decides to go after different demographics. Newscorps owns Fox for chrissakes, and I'd bet anything that Myspace users are not Fox News fans and vice versa. OpenSocial can be used to increase the utility of Newscorps other properties and increase Myspaces value by integrating with them through the API and marketing a "New Myspace" to Fox's audience. In an April Press Releease, http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_413.html stated that each property was to be treated as a stand alone business. That's all well and good, but by leveraging the OpenSocial platform and targeted its captive audience, Myspace could push content from their other properties to each persons front page as well as integrate with or adopt Typepad's opensocial-linked blogging platform instead of its current blog system (they may have done that since I left. I don;t know...). Typepad + Myspace integration could do wonders for both companies. Some of the under-promoted NewsCorp properties include IGN.com (gaming news and community), Jamba (Jamster- Ringtones and Mobile Entertainment) and Hulu (TV) are perfect for cross-promotion and integration through something similar to Facebook Connect. They can also provide exclusive, made-for-Myspace content from their magazines (GQ, Vogue Living ?) and streaming video from Fox Sports, SpeedChannel, and Fox College Sports. If Newscorp were to provide exclusive IGN and Jamster content to Myspace/Typepad users in the US, that might stop some Lemmings from following their friends to Facebook. Twitter Profile integration might also be a strategic advantage for both companies. These are ideas just off the top of my head, no real thought involved, other than hunting down that link. Surely Newscorp could come up with something better and more innovative.

Montoya · 1 month ago

Pay attention. Hundreds of developers criticized Myspace for choosing to use OpenSocial instead of building a custom platform. OpenSocial was presented as something that was supposed to help Myspace beat Facebook by welcoming apps that were easier to deploy than Facebook apps, but it turned out to be a huge failure. Hi5 eventually stopped promoting their OpenSocial apps and pushed a closed games platform instead. Facebook did the right thing by building a deeply integrated and robust platform instead of just trying to shoehorn a half-baked framework onto their network, and then made an even bigger step with Connect. It's innovation that has helped Facebook avoid going the same way as Myspace. When companies promote their marketing campaigns to users, they send them to Facebook fan pages and Twitter profiles; they don't advertise their Myspace pages anymore.

TwtrCoach · 1 month ago

And this happens also after they got in sync with Twitter.. Plus desktop client Tweetdeck added MySpace access.

I would have like to seen some comparison, and maybe get an idea of where is all these people going..

Maybe this also is a signal to other Social Media channels that you have to be able to adapt to be current. If you chose not to listen, well there is others just waiting to grasp the hordes...

Cheers.. Are

Erik Giberti · 1 month ago

Ben,

I generally agree - it's a train wreck over there and the recent shedding staff isn't going to save them. However, I don't know that I'd say an increase of 1/2 million is an acceleration at this point. It could be chalked that up to margin of error and you could have been a bit less sensationalist in the title. That aside I wanted to make 2 points.

First, Like their methodology or not - the Alexa graphs for Page View and Reach paint a much bleaker picture. The graphs shows a steady linear decline starting Summer 2008. The graph is worth taking a look at: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/myspace.com (open it up to max)

Second, I believe that had MySpace been more open with support of third party applications early on, moving from less restrictive to more restrictive as Facebook did, they would have gotten similar initial adoption and garnered buzz as Facebook has (and continues to do). They could have single handedly make OpenSocial a giant success in the US.

Erik

p33ba · 1 month ago

bout time!

blackpatti · 1 month ago

Here is a good article on 3 things myspace can do to save itself.

http://rule4081.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/3-thin...

Lance Haun · 1 month ago

Given the target demographic, wouldn't it be wiser to look at year over year changes? Notice the top performing months are all months that kids are out of school (Dec, Jan, Jun, Jul). A year over year decline of a little under 9% is nothing to sneeze at but given how poorly we all assume MySpace is doing, isn't that a bit surprising? You could tell me their traffic is half of last years and I would believe it but somebody is using the site.

SpaceTiik · 1 month ago

MySpace is a wonderful networking tool for musicians and artists. MUCH better than any of the others. Let's not let it fall away. The band exposure I get on MySpace is just not possible on FB or Twitter.

Nikolay Kolev · 1 month ago

MySpace has its loyal demographic and it's not going to disappear anytime soon.

Sean Percival · 1 month ago

Weird, I'm using it at least 100% more than usual these days.

ukalipt · 1 month ago

when you build something that looks crap after a period of time people get sick of it. NEVER under estimate the power of good design. vimeo is a classic example. youtubes trafffic increases as does vimeo... almost head to head with you tube it will remain as it is beautifully designed

Todd Allison · 1 month ago

How is it even getting that many visitors? I would think even the teenie boppers would have left it by now.

Eddie Offermann · 1 month ago

MySpace has definitely lost relevancy - and I think it's partially a natural migration as people find new ways to communicate online, and partially the result of consistently poor interface standards. Load times have been intolerable for years and the site's just plain ugly to look at. That's gotten a little better as of late, but not enough to get me to spend much time there. Facebook is where I organize most of my photos now, and Twitter is how I disseminate information about my day and get a feeling for what's going on in my friends' lives. MySpace is just to keep up with the few that haven't switched to something newer.

Steve · 1 month ago

That is really sick. I don't know what they can do except become Facebook.

Travis Graham · 1 month ago

Myspace will never dominate the social media space again, but I do think it could become relevant as a music and potentially other entertainment provider. My full thoughts here: http://travisgraham.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/ho...

Computer Accessories · 1 month ago

Thank you for highlighting us on this important news because when i look at myspace , it looks to me like its halfway stuck in the geocities era...

Chris DeFox · 1 month ago

Myspace isn't sinking. The ocean of users that kept it afloat is drying up. Or, I gues I am wrong.

mechanesthesia · 1 month ago

MySpace is the AOL of social networks. They're never going to change.
Look at the atrocity that is their new "Event" system. I help run a profile weekly event for a club in Miami. We and every other event profile STILL to this day uses the old event system.
You can't even post links or images. What kind of stupidity is that?

And they still refuse to listen to their users.

David Shantz -Magnity · 1 month ago

This fight is beyond a popularity contest. Clearly, MySpace had the numbers lead, and lost it... the valuable lesson is to figure out WHY? The way I see it, its down to interface and group interaction.

Interface: MySpace delivers the ability to create a much more unique and personal statement than Facebook. Myspace is infinitely flexible, where Facebook really only allows adjustments to content. That said, my personal MySpace page is a bit of a mess, and I'm a professional. its a huge window into what people value.

Group Interactions: Facebook really gets this right. My Space by contrast is distractingly open and lacking in structure.

It's become apparent that success in social media it less about building an application platform and much more about connecting with good friends. Simplicity and clarity seem to be valued by the majority of users. The Facebook applications platform did mark the beginning of huge growth for the network, but it seems to have been a catalyst.

Perhaps the most interesting idea here is that until recently, first to market advantage was practically unsurmountable. This has proven to no longer be true - many times. Anything can happen.

Name · 1 month ago

I've been on MySpace since 2006. If MySpace would get rid of the bandwidth-hogging pre-roll movie trailers so I could actually sign in from home or update my status, it would be a big help. Simplified profile designs would be nice too.

Will Dwinnell · 1 month ago

MySpace may indeed be headed for disaster, but I'd make several notes on the data presented:

1. "MySpace’s U.S. Traffic Falls Off a Cliff": Let's note that the graph you present does not display zero. Though MySpace has indeed lost many "unique visitors", both in raw count, and as a proportion of recent traffic, your graph does not show how far it has to fall before it hits the true bottom of "none".

2. "MySpace’s downfall is accelerating" / "I don’t think I have to tell you what will happen if this trend continues.": This is based on the most recent 3 months' worth of data. I wonder what your analysis would have been, if the previous 3 months (March through June) had been examined? "Accelerating upward trend"?

3. You have chosen to focus on "Unique Visitors". Whether this or some other measure best reflects MySpace's performance is an open question. Perhaps a "unique visitor" who returns several times in a given month is of greater interest?

Don't get me wrong: Having used both MySpace and FaceBook, my suspicion has long been that FaceBook had systematic advantages over MySpace. Though the data is certainly not sunny, I just think you're wringing more from the data you've presented than is really there.

jamesdotlane · 1 month ago

It appears that the majority of people who have MySpace accounts are those that have just "always had one". Few (comparatively) sign up to MySpace for new accounts; according to this article, large numbers (comparatively) are leaving, so, it would certainly seem to be a forgone conclusion.

There just isn't any excitement behind MySpace any more. I *want* to try new Twitter clients, I *want* to try new features that Facebook roll out. I couldn't give a crap what MySpace do, and it seems that a lot of people are starting to think that way.

erupert66 · 1 month ago

Facebook wasn't "cool" a year ago for my middle schooler who's now in High School. Many parents (us included) banned him from it because of the porno and sex solicitation ads that make up most of the advertising. About 3 months ago, all of his friends started to switch to facebook and now, he could care less about MySpace. He doesn't care about the site, he cares about who's on it.

andrewkinnear · 1 month ago

The last time I logged in was to delete anything of relevance so that I can forget about the account. I'll keep it live for the personal SEO though...

Neal White · 1 month ago

I don't know that this is a real trend, Facebook was supposed to be a "MySpace for grown-ups" but the prolifferation of stupid cosmo-esq "what personality type are you" "What munsters character are you" "What kind of flower are you" makes me think it's more MySpace than Myspace was. Thousands of pointless time-wasting apps does not a social network make. Myspace will be here, like AOL, passing the pointless CD"s (in this case pointless apps) to millions of users and sucking time out of your day) for years. and a new trend will follow.

mattrs · 1 month ago

Too many ads and tricked-out profiles make it slow and cumbersome...it should die for lack of innovation.

chadwpalm · 1 month ago

I was a late adopter to MySpace but once I started using it I was on it a LOT. This was back in 2005-2006. I got a Facebook early on, but didn't understand why I needed to be connected with all the same people on 2 social networks. I always hated MySpace's ugly pages and clunky design, and especially hated all the stupid ads I was forced to look at. But about a year ago I noticed that all of my friends were using Facebook a lot more than Myspace and my Myspace was slowing becoming more and more desolate and not much activity anymore. So I opened a Facebook account again about 6 months ago and it only took me about 3 weeks to close down my Myspace because I became so irrelevant and inferior. In fact, as time went on, Myspace started to try and look and feel more like Facebook, but just wasn't the same. To me that was like pouring salt into a wound.

I agree that Myspace is mostly relevant now for band exposure, but I don't think it will be much longer that Facebook integrates a good music interface and all the bands will jump onto Facebook knowing it's really the more popular site thus sending Myspace to it's final grave.

Jo · 1 month ago

The 'new' new thing!

Google watching closely (it should).

umar · 1 month ago

How has this happened for myspace

Audras Ambries · 1 month ago

It's going to get one last bump before it dies.

jerod · 1 month ago

van natta blew it

lisamj10 · 1 month ago

Facebook is the adult MySpace.

twittle · 1 month ago

i like talking with mommy on facebook too!

maya · 1 month ago

myspace traffic is on the way up since kids are back in school and bored again

TheB · 1 month ago

Given the demographics, MySpace is simply too time-consuming. Every time I visit a page there, I have to go and take a shower (and all that glitter and cheesecake is hell on the plumbing).

T. · 1 month ago

It's a fad! Unfortunately for them, it's core audience is onto the next thing. Even if the next thing is an iteration of them, it is new. Facebook would be having the same problem except the interface is easier to use, and hence older people are picking it up. Once the over 50 crowd stops for Facebook, then what? Although, older people tend not to move onto 'the next biggest fad' if the one they are using works. So, maybe they will be okay. I cannot believe however, that MySpace didn't see this coming. Anyone over 16 could have predicted it.

Michael · 1 month ago

Whilst this is really a big drop, that graph is brilliantly deceptive with it's y-axis scale - makes a ~17% drop look like more like 90%.

Taras Kiseliuk · 1 month ago

MySpace should take a lesson from last.fm, it still can recover as a social network for bands and other things...

Hellow · 1 month ago

And nothing of value was lost.

Tk The Don · 1 month ago

Look here are my 2 cents. One being yes, with the internet monopolies are not allowed to reign. it goes completely against the foundation that has existed from the begging of the internet time which is truth. The PEople will have their say. In with the good, out with the rubish. By nature the internet is a democratic environment. But the key is sustainability. Which ever one of these so called "top" social networking sites figures out how to make a strong comeback, and draw there audiences and users back unto there sites with legitimate content will emerge as top dog.

I personally like Myspace's chances. The current micro blogging trends of today will subside or shift into something else entirely which at this point, i'm not quite sure what that is yet but it will change. Myspace strong point is music and will continue to be so. and as long as people can relate to good, classic-hitting tracks from unbelievably talented artist then I believe Myspace in the long run will win out.