Someone explain Myspace/Facebook to me, please

I was an early adopter of the internet, back when Mosaic was the web browser of choice and JPEGs had to be displayed using a separate application. I participated in Usenet newsgroups, chatted away on IRC, had multiple Geocities web sites, and was proud of my 200MB mp3 collection (stored on Iomega Zip discs) back in 1998, played via Winamp. Today, I am an avid user of internet forums, Wikipedia, Youtube, etc. Much of my professional work uses data made available by research organizations and government agencies via the net. What I don't get is what sites like Myspace and Facebook are supposed to be.

When I visit Myspace, the profiles either look like bad Geocities sites from the late 1990s, or they are advertising for some celebrity or company. It appears as if messages can be left for other users (why would one not use e-mail or instant messaging for that?). What's the hype all about? Please, someone help me understand so that I don't feel hopelessly out-of-touch with reality any longer.

I'm an old fart who logged on to CompuServe for the first time in 1980 with a 300 baud modem. I have no use for Facebook or MySpace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

ArcaneXor said:

What's the hype all about? Please, someone help me understand so that I don't feel hopelessly out-of-touch with reality any longer.

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just another way to sell advertising.

My kids do myspace and facebook. I laugh when I hear (young) adults talking about it- kind of like a whole different generational thing. The LAST things I'd ever be interested in are blogs (mine or others) or myspace.

I'm old and crabby. I don't need poor grammar and bad photos to make me happy. I can get that at home.

I have a myspace account, I used to update it a bit, but now I spend all of my time here, sharing my life with you all.

Some people spend too much time on that stuff, change their profiles more that their underwear, and like yoops said the grammer/computer speak in use today basically sucks.

I use it to keep in touch with old friends that have moved away, and family.

Being a 19-year-old college student (whose first computer used the Windows 3.1 OS; Program Manager for the win!), I might can help shed some light on this. Until a few months ago, I didn't have a Facebook or Myspace account. I finally broke down and signed up for Facebook this year when I went to college, and I discovered just how useless it was to me: I'll call someone if I really want to speak to them.

I think the main reason kids these days (yes, I'm one of those kids) enjoy these sites is the ability to feel like they're worth something. Take the unknown blogger for instance, they write post after post, and none of them get viewed. So what is the point. To feel like some one cares. At some subconscious level they think, "Somebody, somewhere, has to be interested that I just broke up with my boyfriend/girlfriend." And I believe this is a product of our culture. Parents are either too far removed from their children to actually show affection, or they are too close (read: controlling) to gain the respect of their children. The children aren't getting it at home, and they certainly are getting it at school, so where can they go that they can get that affection and appreciation? Their Myspace page. Whether some one is actually reading their page or not, they think some one is reading it, and that's what matters.

Of course, there are many other explanations for the phenomenon, and many of them have to do with the fact that it is just a freaking fad. However, fads have to start somewhere and for some reason.

/MY_TWO_CENTS

Edit: Wow, this post sounds like I think all Myspace/Facebook users are attention-seeking kiddies. The above is what I see with most of my school-mates and friends my age. Many people do use it solely to keep up with far away relatives and old friends. Hope I don't offend anybody.

I've been able to get intouch with a bunch of good friends from high school and college that I had lost touch with. I used it like a free classmates.com

I debated getting rid of my facebook account, but it's nice to be able to contact someone who has moved away and you don't have their phone # or whatnot anymore.

Other than that, yeah, what WillPall said.

The horrid look of myspace is the reason I never signed up for that. They do look like 1990's geocities websites, just god awful... plus there's music and the colors either induce a seizure or it's dark on dark or light on light and you can't read it. Or a scrolling text on a fixed background, WTF! there's a reason no website looks like that, it sucks and is hard to read. Facebook is trying to go that way with some stuff, but I'm still able to navigate it so....

All the explanation necessary:

http://xkcd.com/300/

I have a Myspace and as some said, it is nice to use to find or get a hold of hold friends or people you have lost contact with. It's also nice to just send a message to someone sometime. I know cell phones are popular, but some things aren't important enough for a call sometimes and you just need to say hi. (and I hate constant cell phone talkers anyway)

As far as the look of the site, everyone makes up their own, so it can be as simple as possible, or someone could add all that crap. On mine I have a nice picture I took in Vegas a few years back as the wall paper and I just have all the info listed with nothing flashing in big bold letters. Simple, but nice.

brewt00l said:

All the explanation necessary:

http://xkcd.com/300/

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yeah that pretty much sums it up

Facebook was originally designed for college use only. When it was first released at my campus in 06' it was the "thing" to have an account. You could only sign up if you had a .edu addy. When you finally got on facebook, you could post party photos, find people with similar interests as you, and much more. I posted my schedule on my profile and low and behold, there were others that did the same. I could meet people in my class before the semester even started. You could even look up people that were pursuing the same degree as you. Everything on your profile was clickable, so if you were so inclined to click on your own birth date, Facebook would gather all others who had the same date and display them on a page. Note that this was only users in your university.

That all changed after they made it worldwide.

ArcaneXor said:

I was an early adopter of the internet, back when Mosaic was the web browser of choice and JPEGs had to be displayed using a separate application. I participated in Usenet newsgroups, chatted away on IRC, had multiple Geocities web sites, and was proud of my 200MB mp3 collection (stored on Iomega Zip discs) back in 1998, played via Winamp.

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Ahh... Mosaic. Anyone actually REMEMBER Gopher?

I still use USENET and IRC... Why do you say it like they're dead?

Yooper said:

My kids do myspace and facebook. I laugh when I hear (young) adults talking about it- kind of like a whole different generational thing. The LAST things I'd ever be interested in are blogs (mine or others) or myspace.

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There very much is a generational gap I think and I'm on the line... I'm 23 and I couldn't give a damn less about MySpace of Facebook but blogging... Ah, blogging is pure love.

I'm pretty much opposed to MySpace and the like. I see those sites as essentially webspace for people who don't have something interesting enough to say to have their own domain. I happily admit to being a technology elitist - the process of domain registration and hosting fees pretty much whittle the internet down to people who have something they REALLY want to share. I've noticed that because MySpace is so popular movies are now using it as a platform for advertising (Go to myspace.com/thisnewmovie now for sneak peaks!) but it backfires at least for me... Any movie worth watching has it's own domain name. Even a movie about a font - Helvetica - got it's own!

I'll chime in with another 'good way to track people down' and figure out who THEY know. Facebook and Myspace both give me another way to network with people. I started spending a little time each week reach out out to people and visiting their webspaces to see who else they have as friends so that I have a feeling for who I have 'access' to in the business world.

I also use Linked In, which is much more of a business focused social network and that one actually makes it pretty easy to drill down to someone at a specific comapny or in a specific field, whereas the non-business networks dont' really give you the best information to get you to a specific connect.

This was most enlightening, thank you.

EdWort said:

I'm an old fart who logged on to CompuServe for the first time in 1980 with a 300 baud modem.

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Ah, the good old days. Dial telephone and place into the "boot". 600 baud connection from our high school computer room to UW Whitewater to play wumpus hunt and create word search puzzles and print them on the dot matrix.

kornkob said:

I also use Linked In, which is much more of a business focused social network and that one actually makes it pretty easy to drill down to someone at a specific comapny or in a specific field, whereas the non-business networks dont' really give you the best information to get you to a specific connect.

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Linked In = Facebook for adults
Actually, I think it is a great tool. I have been in a job search and got on there about three weeks ago. I am working at a company that has gone from 1,500 employees and through 7 layoffs in 5 years, is now going to 80. It is amazing the number of former colleagues I have found on there. Great help with networking, especially when your out looking for work.

Started my online time wasting in 1976 with a teletype and an acoustic couple on an 80 baud modem. Next year the school got Apple II machines and I convinced them they needed a modem on one of them. I'll never forget the day I purchased my third modem.. 1200 BAUD! In those days I spent a lot of time trolling "Bulletin Boards" looking fro pirated games.. and found a LOT of them!.

Facebook/myspace bore the hell out of me, but if I were a teenager without a lot of social interaction (like "Country kids"), I would most likely have a great interest in them.

Of course there are probably a lot of perverts and pedophiles checking these out on a daily basis as well, looking for prey....

this reminds me, I have to check my myspace...

I have a myspace account that I have not done anything with in a long time.

I'd rather spend my time here. It seems like myspace is just another means to spread gossip.

No Clue Brew is on Facebook. Check us out...

I only have one because apparently not one of my friends knows how to use the internet.

Hey, I remember using Gopher! And Archie, Veronica and Jughead. Seriously. I still use usenet and IRC.

My first thoughts about myspace was that it was the geocities of the 2000's, but with more bandwidth. The pages were bandwidth hogging eyeball atrocities. It didn't seem to do anything more than I already do with email, chatting, and sharing pictures.

Then I got divorced. Suddenly I'm more sociable!

Most of my friends were my coworkers from my old job and everyone seemed to have a myspace. So I got one so I could stay in the loop. It actually seems to work out well. I can read people's past blogs to see what they've been up to (I love a good rant) and go through their photo albums without having to ask them to compile and send em to me. Likewise, it's a good way for me to share pictures without forcing them on people. I never thought about looking up old classmates through it. Then again, do I even want to look for those people?

I still think most pages are internet tube clogging monstrosities though. Does anyone have any good beer themes for myspace?

I actually tried out Facebook, and having a lot of fun with it. Myspace I still don't care for.

You're older than 18 so you won't figure out MySpace and you're older then 25 so you won't figure out Facebook. Just face the facts, you're old.

It's where 40-something year old men go to meet 13 year old sluts.

Nuff Said!






There is nothing that you really need to know about it except that it is a breading ground for sexual predators and dirt bags.
<-----------F*ing hates that site!

Right, because only sexual predators eat bread.

Why the hate on myspace, wop31? Honestly, meeting people on the internet is nothing out of the ordinary. There are potential predators everywhere you go, from bars, to public bathrooms, to your neighbors. You just have to be careful, is all. I've gotten two friend requests from underage girls before. It turns out they were sisters and that I've met them before several times (in person). I also had their mother on my myspace already. The first thing I did was ask them if their mother knew they were talking to me, then sent her a message immediately saying what they were up to. Everything's fine though, the mom said she told them I was OK. Even though I *am* evil. :cross:

And ADX, I started my myspace page when I was 31, so F U bish! :fro:

EvilTOJ said:

Right, because only sexual predators eat bread.

Why the hate on myspace, wop31? Honestly, meeting people on the internet is nothing out of the ordinary. There are potential predators everywhere you go, from bars, to public bathrooms, to your neighbors. You just have to be careful, is all. I've gotten two friend requests from underage girls before. It turns out they were sisters and that I've met them before several times (in person). I also had their mother on my myspace already. The first thing I did was ask them if their mother knew they were talking to me, then sent her a message immediately saying what they were up to. Everything's fine though, the mom said she told them I was OK. Even though I *am* evil. :cross:

And ADX, I started my myspace page when I was 31, so F U bish! :fro:

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Did you not read the t-shirt? I didn't post it to just be funny.

I graduated from highschool 4 years ago and it's a good way to get back into contact with friends from school. In fact a couple weeks ago a friend who I haven't seen since graduation came over and we picked up where we left off. It turns out that we both moved 80 miles away within 5 miles of each other. Strange

And I like to whore out pictures of my hobbies on it.


www.myspace.com/laureltq