MySpace or Facebook: That Is the Question

[Margaret F]

Who remembers that in our techstitute in July, perhaps ever so fleetingly, a conversation meandered toward the question "If one were to have a social networking site page, do professional adults use MySpace or Facebook?" In Virginia Heffernan's "The Medium: Coldpage," she comments, "... the university crowd may have quit the boisterous MySpace for the wittier and more austere Facebook" (The New York Times Magazine 13 July 2008 and here's the link to this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/magazine/13wwln-medium-t.html).

Searching, I also found a warning that posting too much personal data on a social networking site can offer identity thieves easier pickings, duh. I hadn't articulated that risk, but I've never been convinced sharing real names and details and photos (risque or not) with the vaposphere makes sense.

But back to MySpace v. Facebook, this explanation was offered in the Times Freakonomics blog (link: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/myspace-v-facebook-the-class-divide/), which is followed by many comments:
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June 27, 2007, 2:14 pm
MySpace v. Facebook: The Class Divide

By Melissa Lafsky

There’s been plenty of buzz this week over a paper by U.C. Berkeley PhD. student Danah Boyd, who argues that Facebook users are more socioeconomically advantaged than those on MySpace. According to Boyd, the Facebook crowd “tend[s] to come from families who emphasize education and going to college … They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.”

This conclusion isn’t too surprising given the evolution paths of the two sites. MySpace, launched in 2003 as a competitor to the then-dominant Friendster, built its popularity on the ability to post music files on individual profiles. It emerged in 2005 as the preeminent social networking site, and developed popularity as a means of self-promotion for careers ranging from adult film star to presidential candidate.

Facebook, meanwhile, was created in 2004 by an undergraduate at Harvard, and evolved as an invite-only site for college students. In 2006, when MySpace was boasting 46 million users a month to Facebook’s 9.3 million, the smaller site opened its doors to include all potential users (to some protests from its core market of undergrads, recent alums, and teens preparing for college). Only in the past few months has the network begun to creep up on MySpace in popularity and growth. As such, logic decrees that Facebook would emerge as the more academically-oriented of the two, with a greater draw for upwardly mobile teens headed for college — a disproportionate number of whom are also white and come from wealthier backgrounds. And that, it seems, is an issue far more worthy of study.
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So I'm not in any hurry to create a Facebook page, for reasons above and many others (the complete Toni Morrison, painting the house, riding my bike, etc.) or investigate if a LinkedIn ("the world's largest business network") page is necessary, but until these sites are completely replaced by the next big new* thing, and they no doubt will be any day now, here's a partial answer to one of life's persistent questions, Guy Noir, for whatever it's worth.

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* Or "old" thing--today's Times reported that Google's Friendster site is heavily used, and getting a new $20 million investment, in Asia (Stone, Brad. "BITS: Friendster Lives: New Cash, New C.E.O. and a New Strategy?" New York Times 5 Aug. 2008: 12:38 a.m. accessed 5 Aug. 2008 and here's the link: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/friendster-lives-new-cash-new-ceo-and-a-new-strategy/index.html?ref=technology).

[Margaret F]

Thanks, Aileen...I am not really interested in even a Facebook page (though I am surprised every now and then when a "real adult" acquaintance asks me if I have one--I always sort of think "eek, do YOU?"), but I am sorry to hear about what you went through and grateful to be forewarned. To tell you the truth, I'm even wary when I'm asked to "friend" someone on one of those sites--except for here on our ning, as you wisely say. I go back to The New School tomorrow, but if an extra week were suddenly to appear on the calendar, I'd be thrilled...I've had a too-relaxing August.
Looking fwd to staying in touch on our ning,
Margaret

[Aileen Malave]

Hi Margaret
I thought I should share with you that Myspace is not a good place for networking socially with the subject of education and students in mind. I recently went through a horrible experience with myspace that immediately provoked me to remove my page. A person I knew posted an imposter profile of me with pictures of myself and horrible risque pictures that were not of me as if I were selling myself. I immediately had Myspace remove the page he created and pressed charges against him for aggravated harrassment to ensure that he would not do this again. I found the ning to be more trustworthy because you can control it to be private just amongst the group you are working with. I'm not familiar with facebook, but I do know that a colegue of mine has posted a page there and I know that he is the type of person that really looks into things before going head on with it and I trust his judgment completely. I hope that you have been enjoying the rest of your summer. Every time I see anything that has to do with France, I think of you.