Post 6 - This one? That one? or Both?

As a means of social networking, MySpace and Facebook provide the tools to present yourself the way you wish to be viewed. The ‘you’ that you present to the world is completely up to you. You do not have to include bad photos, your likes and dislikes are without the ones you’re embarrassed about, and all other information is totally subjective to the persona you want to portray. I myself am guilty of this ‘exclusion’. There are only good photos on my MySpace page; I also don’t include the movies or music artists that I don’t want my friends to know that I like. MySpace like many other internet profiles simply presents an edited version of oneself. I have participated in many internet socialising forms. I was an avid forum member of an Australian run fan-forum for approximately three years. I like the interaction of a forum, the back and forth and continuation of conversation and discussion. I can see how as a way of keeping contact on a less regular basis, that a forum environment would not suit the majority of people that use these social networking sites. MySpace and Facebook do not have the daily update of content that forums do. They are much easier to navigate on a less regular basis without becoming lost, confused or wasting time trying to find what you are looking for. These sites provide the connection to your friends through your profile. You may post about things you like or what you have been up to recently. The only real interaction of MySpace is the public or private messages sent between friends, which can potentially lose the context in time delay.

After signing up to Facebook last week, which seems to be the current trend among social networkers, I have found myself visiting that profile much more than my MySpace one. I have found that while it may not be a pretty or visually appealing as MySpace, the general layout of Facebook is much easier to work with on a more frequent basis. The personalisation lies in the sections you choose to include on your profile. These are interactive applications which you can participate in as a team against or with your friends. These include movie compatibility tests, sending gifts, trick or treating, and many other varieties which I have yet to discover. In addition to these interactions, you can rate movies and books, do an never ending TV trivia quiz –which can win points for your team of friends, play vampire and attack or recruit your friends, share photos, display your family tree, and write messages on your friend’s ‘wall’ – which is much like the comments section of MySpace. Something I found very interesting is the difference in security between the two networking sites.

The reality is that these sites have a relatively short shelf life in terms of technology and content. Inevitably something new and more advance will come along and the others will be forced to update or face extinction. I have heard from friends that MySpace is trying to include more Facebook-like content, but I have yet to see anything overly interesting.

Post 5 - MySpace Alternatives

While MySpace is a popular site with millions, or billions of users, in the last few weeks I have found that when talking to friends and family of mine, that many prefer Facebook. In fact one of my friends, who had previously been boycotting these ‘social networking’ sites, has even joined up herself. I thought I’d sign up to see exactly what the big appeal of Facebook is. From what I have heard, Facebook has all these added extras which you can send to your friends, as well as quizzes and compatibility tests. These all make MySpace sound very boring, plain and much less interactive. MySpace tends to just sit there, unless you chose to do something to make something else happen. I find the whole thing rather static. Unless you care about having thousands of friends, you stick to those that you know, and even if you add a few music artists, or celebrities, you still probably don’t have a thousand friends. Even posting comments is very one sided. You post a comment on someone’s profile, they reply on yours. So this could become confusing if you did not remember what exactly it was you wrote that they were replying to.

Another main activity of MySpace seems to be ‘pimping’ as it’s called your profile with colours, pictures and all sorts of bells and whistles. But there is not much constant interaction. Messages go back and forth, but there is always that delay in response, and you can’t post a lot of information in one message. This is why I prefer email, where you can say everything you need to say, including private information in as big a message as you want. It is possible to have a conversation through email, or better yet, instant messaging. Years ago that used to be all the rage, now it seems to have been pushed aside by these new social networking sites. I suppose the idea is that you can do all of these activities through MySpace or Facebook, but it is not even close to being the same sort of interaction. MySpace is almost like having a personal website, and just having it there for people to look at.

There are only two real benefits I see of using MySpace, the first is the ability to find people you have lost contact with –if they have a profile, and everyone seems to have a profile. The other is that you can upload all sorts of pictures that you can share with your friends. But you could probably do the same thing with a link to a photobucket or flicker album.

Post 4 - Update

The day to day function of a MySpace profile seems to be rather boring and useless, if there are no new updates such as new comments from friends, or new friend requests, or something you want to add. The appeal of MySpace seems to be to look at other people's profiles, make a comment and then eventually they might reply. You can also see what they are up to, and if they are on far away travelling, you can find out when they are coming back. However if you see them on a day to day basis, their pages are not that interesting.

The best feature or function of MySpace to me seems to be the Music element. It's perhaps the most useful and non-trivial. There is plenty of information about tours, upcoming singles and albums as well as being able to use their music on your page. I recently changed my background music from Fray's 'How to Save a life', to Snow Patrol's 'Chasing Cars'. It's a pity you can have a few rotating songs. -Maybe you can but only if you know how to figure it out.

My friend count has gone up, and I have a friend who saw me updating my profile the other day, and gave me the link to her page. I didn't know she even had a page. These days it's getting harder to find people, because they have many different email addresses, and if you have one that they use for MSN, but not for email or MySpace, you might be stuck searching for them for ages, depending on how much you know about them. However, if you sit there looking through all of your friends friends you can find so many other people you want to include in your own list.

I have started adding to my MySpace blog, but nothing too interesting. Most of the content is random things I feel like sharing, like favourite quotes or interesting details about upcoming events. I have a regular blog, in fact I have two, so I don't tend to post about really personal stuff, or what I've been up to. I could combine all of them into one on MySpace, but I like having the blog which is a little private, more of an online diary. I don't care who reads it, but I'm not advertising it around either. MySpace is meant to be seen, that's part of the point.
Maybe I will become more comfortable with MySpace in the next few days when I will have a chance to update things, and play around with the overall look of my Profile. I will also attempt to get more involved with the pages of my friends, as so far there are people's pages I have not made any comments on, or even really taken the time to look at yet.

Post 3 - The Extended Network

In the last week, my MySpace page has been a little quieter than in previous weeks. I started running out of friends I know to search for their MySpace pages, so my friends list is currently as a very low, compared to other people's pages, 14 friends. But I can live with that. I have made the decision that, other than bands or people who have music to share, I will only let people I actually know be on my friends list. I received two requests from people wanting to be my friends, but decided against adding them to my list. I think that's one of the good things about MySpace as a social networking tool, the fact that you can chose who you want to view your page and profile, and who you want to include as your friends. You can also pick different numbers of 'top friends', who get the privilege of being displayed within your main page. I chose the option of 8, which consists of family and friends. MySpace has plenty of options for socialising and customising. Which is one of the things that makes to so great. I must admit that I have really become addicted to MySpace, even though I had been boycotting it before this assignment.

I find it very interesting how many music artists have pages, with their music available to play within the page. Not only can you listen to their music, but you can use it on your own MySpace page. Just out of curiosity, I recently searched for a band I like, 'The Fray'. I found their page, and added their song "How to Save a Life" to my own page, and now it plays every time someone visits my MySpace profile. This is a great way of making songs well known and getting them out there. Every time you visit a friend's page, you hear a song and if you like it, you might look who the artist is and the name of the song, and then find their MySpace page and become more interested in hearing some of their other songs, or going to their concert.

It's interesting the way you interact with people on MySpace differently, depending on if you see them regularly, or just from time to time. In my case, I find that the friends I see a few days every week are more into MySpace and leaving me comments and notes. Which I then reply to and we create an odd sort of conversation, which is the sum of multiple comments sent back and forth. But then again, it may be just that these friends are more MySpace 'savvy' and more frequent users than my other friends.

-Carlie