by Aner Ravon
I’ve been waiting for this one for a long time. My dear buddy Francois Depayras contributed the following entry. Besides being a true pro, Francois is also a great writer. If you feel critical about the butt-naked king, this one’s for you! I hope it’s a first of many more to come. Here goes:
“It is not without a tiny bit of nervousness that I write these lines… Indeed when my good friend Aner invited me to “say what’s on your mind, go for the jugular”, it was a mighty tall order.
Technically un-savvy, networkly a lemon, and protocolly inapt I though it difficult to write about such grandiose topics without sounding like an ass and way out of my tree-house. Then I realized that it would be once more in many times over, so what’s the biggy?
Ok then: MySpace sucks, their IM blows a bigger one. Skype wasn’t worth $4B – not by a mile. Digg is merely an Apple-centric Fark.com. Google hasn’t come up with something innovative in 18 months (sure, sure, prove me wrong…Google Earth, Google Map… Google Video – who’s interface was apparently designed by the same kids who run the special Olympics every year – there are some glimpse of hope… but I’m expecting more, sorry). And finally, Flickr, the ultimate Artiste wannabe who’s picture of the statue leaning against the sunset only matches the size of the photograph’s numerous penile picture, once you’ve accepted him as a friend. And please, let’s keep posting the “Wow… looks awesome” or “lol, you rock dude!” over and over again. The entertainment factor never dies.
MySpace.com then. I recently read *cough* in the comment area of this very blog *cough* that MySpace had been profitable since 2003 (no??!!) and henceforth knew what the hell they were doing and their IM kicked ass because all the kids wanted to get on with that bad boy and chat. Mmm.. ok, I’ll skip through phone interoperability or the fact that 4 IM’s is more than enough for everyone (2 months ago, roughly: AIM= 150M members, MSN + Yahoo = 120M members and Google = 800,000 – I might be off here, but the high level is right-on). Weep, ma boy. If googy can’t break the 1M in barrier in a few weeks, mespacey is far behind.
Never mind the fact that FortuneCity’s web building tools were better, faster and slicker in 1998. They weren’t “Social Networking” for sure back then, but at least they didn’t look they had been created by kids with their own personal meth labs.
And it was kind of interactive: they had a Golden Book you could sign… oooooh.
Remember Friendster? Used to be supa’ slick… For some reason, it’s now the gayest of the gay sites… It is not without some glee and a big show of teeth that I remember the owners pissing all over the $40M offer they received. “$40M?? Ah! NO, THANK YOU. I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR”.
So what’s the deal with MySpace and Flickr? I like to call it the “Centenarian-Angst-X,Y Gen-Self-Frolicking – Loser-Meeting-Tool”. What a fine way to waste some time. Go in, see the babes. Attempt to get laid. Succeed with one. Escape the basket case through the broken emergency fire exit. Pick keys out of the trash bin that broke your fall. Limp home.
It gets old pretty quick. Flickr is the same by the way. Expect it targets the Gen-X crowd: “I’m not looking to get laid, I’m an “artist” (i.e. I can press a button) who does not want to be discovered due to my fulfilling life (help me)”.
The bottom line is that most of this technology is pretty weak – at least the current uses demonstrated are weak. BUT, it started “the hype” again, and for that, EVERYONE is behind it, whether they buy it or not. Hype means at least a Director title for a semi-retard who had a couple of strokes last month alone. Hype means a 6 figure salary, because you’ve dusted-up the lame expressions from 1999 and adapted them to this.
Hype is selling newspapers, magazines, online ads.
Conspiracy? Not bloody likely. But nothing to pat each other on the back yet.
The best line yet? Dvorak: “Well, the reason there’s so much hype around this is because venture capitalists think they can turn this into some sort of enterprise CRM solution”.
It’s good to see the moronic venture capitalists of 1999 stayed under a rock for years only to come out at this appropriate time. I personally cannot wait for my company’s next CRM: “Hey hottie@microsoft.com, u got a great rack!! Want to hang for a drink and maybe more later?”
From: Horny customer in Sunnyvale.
I tell you what: put 1% of your revenues and make something that helps me daily.
I’ll be a happy camper.”
Aner Ravon
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So you’re looking at it from the point of view of the board of director? or the world bank? i’m looking at it from the point of view of the end-user. There are trends, always have, always will. My space has the worst usability and look & feel; it’s absolutely terrible - which is a statement to the few seconds that people spend putting up an account.
Two more points:
a) 90% of the bandwidth is used by the major search engine. NOT my space.
b) myspace is not art. it’s a business model for pimply horny teenagers. The comparison with the good Mona Lisa is stretched to its limits.
While I don’t underestimate the popularity of MySpace, I have to agree that MySpace sucks. The user interface is terrible, cluttered, buggy and overly complex. The entire site looks like a mashable of junk, pretty much. It has nothing to do with an investor’s point of view.
The fact that it has millions of subscribers means it does something many people want, that other sites do not offer, at least not in the same way. It allows people to grab a piece of real estate on the web, tailor it to their own taste, express themselves and make connections based on these expressions. But all this doesn’t mean it does it well, and it definitely doesn’t mean it should be celebrated as an artistic achievement. There’s a massive difference between being popular, and advancing human culture to the next evolutionary step.
Compare MySpace to the Eurovision song contest, the Backstreet Boys, the Tamaguchi or Jackass. Sure, each one of these has a certain cultural effect (a professor of mine in Uni actually argued that Jackass will shape human culture for the 21st century). But now compare these to what cellphones did to personal communications, the boost the Internet gave to the global village, what eBay did to shopping, what del.icio.us does to finding web sites - and the difference becomes evident.
I have nothing against cheap entertainment. I like it myself. I can even admit that MySpace does have a hidden hint of a new culture (as any pop-cult-frenzy object does). But I also feel that it’s going to be eventually doomed by its own mixed message. ICQ’s decline is a similar example on how an early mover with a new message gets killed because it is overly complex, and cheaply-populistic.
Having said that, I love what MySpace does to young musicians and artists, and innovative record labels looking for them. It’s a shame it gets clouded with so much garbage.
05.23.06 @ 6:08 pmCouldn’t agree with you more. And here’s the commentary by Dvorak re: Web 2.0 - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1931858,00.asp
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Your missing the whole point . You all look at those web apps and social websites from the Investor side . Your missing the point that myspace has the biggest targeted crowd you can find that spends the most money in the market . Its not you Old smelly people that move the economy , its the teenagers that buy the cell phones and parents buying them expensive cards and consume 90% of the bandwidth world wide . If ya got 90% of them to open an account on awebsite its priceless , Compare it to Art , The Monalisa aint that goodlookin or even Big but its priceless . Same for myspace .
Now go drink gatoraid .
05.23.06 @ 1:32 pm