My Space Vs. Friendster

WhoЎЇs the Next Runner?:

MySpace or Friendster

MySpace is the most popular site in the United States when Hitwise issued a press release on July 11, 2006 that www.myspace.com has surpassed Yahoo! Mail as the most visited domain on the Internet for the U.S. internet users. According to Alexa Internet, MySpace has ranked number 5 position for most visited sites in America next to Yahoo, MSN, Google and YouTube recording a 4300% increase in visits in less than 3 years time. Today, millions people have signed up for MySpace account to make friends, share interests or even for classified advertisements. Friendster , on the other hand is also widely used site which peaked its popularity in 2004. As soon as MySpace was introduced to teenager groups who were actively engaging in on-line socialization, Friendster lost their place as mainstream. Both MySpace and Friendster belong to ÐŽ®social networking sitesЎЇ that are online communities where people can come together based on similar interest, hobbies, desire, goals, histories. These sites have seen a dramatic boom over the course of last few years in a global scale, matched by the overall increase in the number of internet users. Although the two social networking sites seem identical in their function, MySpace and Friendster have their own merits and demerits which will be discussed in membership, interactivity and multimedia categories.

To begin with, MySpace and Friendster membership get a profile section where users can add background image, self-portrait picture, and category of questions to write about their interests and hobbies. MySpace has 8 sections; interests & personality, name, basic info, background & lifestyle, schools, companies, networking, song & video on profile, so that you could write about your favorite movies or songs in interest section and record your previous education and work place to connect with people who went to the same school. Also, in background & lifestyle section, you can click on multiple choice answers to explain your marital status, religion as well as sexual orientation. They are very specific in scope, even asking your child plan and whether you smoke or drink. In the school section, there are over 20 countries including Japan, China and Hong Kong so membership is extended to Asian region also. In networking section, you could add clubs and forums that you are participating, in order to join others with similar interests. The age limit for joining MySpace is currently 14, so if a user under 14 pretends to be older or if a user over 18 pretends to be a minor, their account will be deleted. Lastly, the network MySpace provides is huge, estimated to be 169,688,744 users have joined up to April 8, 2007 while the best known social networking site in Korea, Cyworld, recorded 2 million users early this year. MySpace attracts a large number of people from all over the world to join as a member, and create their space on the Internet that represents them.

On FriendsterЎЇs profile page, there are 4 sections; main, customize, college, school. The main section tells about basic information like hometown and marital status. Unlike MySpace, the categories are not specific so that people have to type in extra information in general ÐŽ®about meЎЇ section. In customize section, featured skins are provided for users to decorate their profile page with a click of a mouse. Although limited in choices, beginners who are not very good at HTML or any other advanced computer skills could find this helpful. Also, in the same section there are links to other web sites to transfer images or slideshow from them. On both college and school section four main countries are available to choose from; United States, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore. This is because Friendster earned its popularity later in these South East Asian regions. The age limit to have a profile on Friendster is currently 16, while the minimum age for searching for someone is 18. This method is to prevent minor members who are contacting adults for illegal reasons. There are said to be 40 million users, among them 5 million Philippines, who have signed up for Friendster since 2002. Although there isnЎЇt a significant rise of new members, it was the most famous friend-making site for many people in the Unites States.

In addition to membership, MySpace exceeds everybody in the market for its interactivity. The major strength of MySpace would be its Instant Messenger (IM) which is similar to MSN messenger. Whenever you log in, an icon next to your picture showing sign tells your friends that you are on-line. With a simple step of installing the messenger program, you can talk to people on your list on a separate window. Although people could talk to each other via e-mail or message boxes, the idea of getting answers instantly grabbed peopleЎЇs attention. IM enabled people to not only chat occasionally, but also do on-line conference with their colleagues. Moreover, the comment section on MySpace took the form of a performative guestbook; whenever someone thinks of someone else, whenever they stop by, they leave a comment. This is a very important turn and it really solidified peopleЎЇs engagement in the site. In addition, while other famous blog sites merely let people to write about things and create their own space for voicing opinions, MySpace blog can be subscribed so that you could read their blogЎЇs latest entry from your own blog page. Lastly, having Tom (Tom Anderson-founder of MySpace) immediately as friend made users feel connection to the site and bring cluster effects to drag in their friends. First time users find it very interesting not only Tom becomes your friend but also he is never off-line.

In contrast, Friendster neither provides