RIP MySpace

Once upon a time, I was a MySpace user.

I used to play the games people played on MySpace. I would put images and music up on my page, and go out of my way to make my profile completely obnoxious to the point of distraction, and communicate with people by finding LOLCATS that would convey the message and post them on their comments section. I would write blah blah blog posts about stuff, read my friends profile, and I think I even posted a very tongue-in-cheek survey mocking people who post surveys that I had written. It was fun, in spite of (or maybe because of?) the fact that it was a spam-riddled seedy corner of the internet, a place with danger lurking around every corner as I indulged my otherwise completely dormant exhibitionist side I didn't know I had and still am not convinced I do.

And Facebook, with it's perfectly manicured interface, really exposed it for the pile of steaming turd it truly is. I still play the same games on Facebook on occasion, I just don't want to gouge my eyes out afterwords.

And 2 weeks ago they opened up their API. Now anyone can export AND import their data right into Facebook, and seamlessly integrate it with the Facebook experience. Now I realize that Facebook is pretty damn late to the portal party, and customizable homepages like My Yahoo! and iGoogle already let you view the contents of your email Inbox alongside your RSS feeds, the weather, stocks, your bookmarks, the news, a Fickr tag, the time in New York and Los Angeles, and the Garfield of the day. But the Facebook homepage has a value-add that none of these offerings have: Social Networking built in.

Here's the key: The news feed. Whenever one of your friends does anything, like install a new widget on their homepage, everyone gets alerted. That means the best add-ons become viral the moment they get released.

Let me give you an example of this in action. I logged into Facebook the other day and my buddy Corvus had achieved a new score of "Music Rookie" on iLike, a Facebook add-on game which challenges you answer multiple-choice questions based upon music they play for you. I consider myself rather musically adept and knowledgeable so I clicked on his "Musical Rookie" score and started playing. Now I'm completely addicted to this stupid game, and now all my friends have signed up for it, and we're having this point war with each other over who knows more about music (or perhaps who has more time to waste answering stupid trivia questions).

And it's not all sunshine and roses. I definitely see this as adding a fair bit of clutter, and people pages are starting to look more like MySpace than ever, but honestly I'm more than convinced this is very much in it's early infancy, and it's potential has yet to be realized.

Honestly, I'm excited about being able to see when my friends add a new feed to their RSS reader. If they add presence and IM, and stick my email inbox in there too while your at it, and sync my Facebook friends up with Plaxo, I'm not sure I'd ever leave.

And in case your wondering, I'm way ahead on points in iLike, but need to improve my speed and accuracy:

Me: Music Pioneer, 789 points (57.1% correct, 5.5s avg)
Corvus: Music Intern, 167 points (59.4% correct, 5.0s avg)