Facebook & Myspace - Essay Example

Millions of teenagers, professionals, and people belonging to specific fields of interest join communities and spend countless hours there to build relationships by exchanging messages, posting their pictures, and writing on blogs. Two of such flourishing and growing web communities are MySpace and FaceBook. This paper explores the similarities and differences between these two websites and analyzes their implications in different domains.

MySpace was launched in 2003 and is one year older than FaceBook therefore it has an edge over FaceBook of being an established business. Both communities have a somewhat different target audiences. As FaceBook was originally offered only to Harvard Business Students and later became public therefore an average person on the website is either a college student or a recently passed college graduate. However, MySpace has a much broader audience with a diverse array of users.

Personalization and Customization

As far as comparing the essential features of both websites, MySpace has got a hand over FaceBook in terms of personalization and customization of user profiles. MySpace is potentially flexible as it allows its user to express themselves in a broader way and users can incorporate a diverse range of colors, personal photos, and flash applications to their pages.

The implication of Personalization and Customization

We know that most of the revenue generated by these types of web communities is through advertisement therefore it has a profound implication. In the future the businesses would be targeting individual needs and preferences therefore MySpace would be considered as a better source of partnering and placing your ads. One of the research firms predicted that MySpace will sell $525 million worth of advertising, whereas FaceBook will be able to sell only $125 million (Kirkpatrick, 2007). This financial impact shows that the personalization of content has provided greater leverage to MySpace.

Privacy

When it comes to customer privacy, FaceBook does ensure maximum security and protects the privacy of the users better than MySpace. The reason is that FaceBook was first launched for the private community (Harvard Students) therefore it is relatively secure. Whereas MySpace was initially targeted to a much larger group therefore it is open to many different kinds of users. One of the critical issues faced by MySpace is of spamming as the users are inundated with spam and pornographic comments. Every other day you would find that you are being requested by tons of anonymous users. It is socially acceptable to request a random person via MySpace whereas on FaceBook it is considered to be unethical and borderline offensive (Callan, 2008).

Implication of Privacy

Again this privacy concern has an implication on the operation of the company. If the customers felt that they are being harassed or their information is being shared without there knowledge then they are at the risk of churning. In the future, if MySpace does not mitigate this situation, it can lose a major chunk of its users.

Design and Layout of Websites

The design and layout of the website have an impact on attracting new users. Facebook in terms of its design is considered to be simple, tidy, and cleaner. On the other hand, MySpace is much more design-oriented and you would find that there are a lot of videos, music, and pictures on many of the MySpace pages. Perhaps many people consider music as one of the core competencies of MySpace. You can find any of the bands and their upcoming events and further updates on music. MySpace is an assortment of modern media - rich with music and video and comedy. It's like a rock & roll club - chaotic, loud, and packed (Kirkpatrick, 2007).

Implication of Design

This music-centric approach implies that MySpace means has a niche and that is something every company needs to survive in the long run.

Technological Structure

Finally for the technological architecture, both the websites are providing various tools and features to their users. MySpace has three unique functions which are not available with FaceBook. These three are the bulletin board, blog posts, and music applications. Similarly, FaceBook has also some distinguishing features like a Drink application, Graffiti Wall, Twitter, Events, and Bumper stickers (Callan, 2008). MySpace has also been embedded into various local languages as there are 29 translated versions of MySpace whereas FaceBook is provided in only four languages: English, Spanish, French, and German. This repercussion can have a dramatic impact on the international market shares of both companies.