Online Marketing for Local Business
Posts tagged MySpace
Teens Starting To Show Facebook Fatigue
14 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
Online gaming site Roiworld surveyed 600 teens ages 13 to 17 in late April and found that teens spend two hours per day online on average, 80% of which is spent using a social network. These same teens are, however, showing signs of “Facebook Fatigue.” Nearly one in five (19%) who have an account no longer visit Facebook or are using it less.
Of the group that are saying goodbye to Facebook, 45% have lost interest, 16% are leaving because their parents are there, 14% say there are “too many adults/older people” and 13% are concerned about the privacy of their personal information.
While interest in Facebook may be waning, it’s still the most popular social network among teens — 78% have created a profile and 69% still use it. YouTube ranks second; 64% of teens claim to have a YouTube profile and continue to use the site. MySpace comes in a distant third (41%) and Twitter takes the fourth spot (20%).
What’s interesting to me is that 30% of those that are leaving report that it’s because of their parents or “adults/older people,” which tells me that the while the social value to teenagers may be starting to wane, the networking and business potential for companies with their parents and other consumers in their 30s, 40s, 50s or 60s keeps getting better all the time!
To read the full article at Mashable and see the video: more…
The Evolution from Technology to Content
15 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
I recently read an interesting article that explored the histories of two former online titans, AOL and MySpace, web companies that seemed to have the world on a string. Once the leaders of two gigantic categories, Internet Service Providers and Social Network Media, what went so wrong?
While some bad business decisions, such as the disastrous “merger of the century” between Time Warner and AOL, certainly share some of the blame, that isn’t what killed either AOL or MySpace. No, what took these companies to the brink was the outdated technology they offered to consumers.
AOL’s core business in the ’90s was dial-up Internet, which was wildly profitable then. Their groundbreaking platform was many people’s first introduction to the Internet and World Wide Web, including my own. (akl26jimbo, for those of you that have known me long enough to remember) But it seems that very quickly the introduction of Cable Internet and DSL made AOL’s technology obsolete. The tides turned quickly, and the company was too slow to respond.
MySpace had a similar experience. They were the first company to introduce social networking technology to the masses, and grew rapidly at the beginning. But their platform, while groundbreaking and innovative, was also unrefined and limited in scope. Facebook started very simply as a way for a few college campuses to connect through a social network of limited size. But with the superior technology of their basic platform, Facebook Connect and their news feed feature, it didn’t take long for Facebook to grow and then overtake MySpace, and they haven’t looked back since. In fact, Facebook continues to grow its now sizable lead by pushing the boundaries of social media technology.
The interesting thing to me is that both companies essentially conceded defeat on the technology front long ago. MySpace knows that it won’t ever catch Facebook, just as AOL knows that its day in the sun as a leading ISP won’t be coming back again. But once they recognized this, it has freed them to begin their current evolutions into content companies.
The truth is, there can only be a very select few winners in the contest to be the best “technology driven” company online. Yes, the lead can sometimes change hands, just like it did away from AOL and MySpace to the current leaders in their respective fields. But those occurrences are becoming rare, and companies such as Google have gained so much mass, brand equity and momentum that it may be years before they are supplanted in any meaningful way.
No, the way to compete now is by becoming a purveyor of content, to drive traffic by creating and sharing valuable information to your target audiences via your platform or service. Filling niche markets. Finding a group or segment who has unmet needs, and then fulfilling them. And that is what AOL and MySpace have done.
AOL bought the blog network Weblogs, publishers of Engadget, Joystiq and many other popular blogs, and began to expand their online new operations. They now employ more than 3,000 freelance writers and over 150 full time journalists. The AOL portal is still popular, and drives traffic to these many inhouse publications. They even moved their headquarters from Virginia to New York in order to help increase their advertising revenues.
MySpace decided to become a home for music and celebrity content. MySpace is no longer about networking with friends, but focused on entertainment channels such as MySpace Music or MySpace Music Video. Perhaps the biggest sign that they’re refocusing on content, though, is the news that MySpace may soon begin to offer Facebook Connect functionality sometime in early 2010. That certainly would have never happened if MySpace still thought they could beat Facebook in social networking technology!
So these companies, and many others, have realized that that trying to attract audiences with better technology is now a losing proposition, and by creating lots and lots of great content they can still drive traffic to their portals and platforms, and remain relevant. Which is yet another reason that the future for online content creation is so bright.