I always hated MySpace. It was gaudy and complicated. It was homage to the origins of the World Wide Web, seasoned with advertising and tastelessness. I suppose never having had an account means that the dawn of the social networking age was lost on me. I cannot look back at the site and reminisce. All I can say is that blogging always appealed far more to me. Then this thing called Facebook came along and it changed everything.
I remember how totally different the interface was from anything I'd ever used before. I remember being frustrated that I couldn't change the background, confused by the concept of The Wall. But there was photo tagging and eventually a news feed and groups and chat all in the same place. It was so different and yet it felt so natural. It ate up too much of my time. I quit once, when I grew frustrated with the lack of privacy and the fact that no one would invite me to parties using any other method. It didn't last long. The act of posting a status message and sharing a link had become too much a part of me.
When Twitter arrived on the scene, it was like Facebook-concentrate. If Facebook was a Kool-Aid of awesome diluted with kiddie photos and inspirational posters, Twitter was just the good stuff - that status message that reached out to the world, beyond the confines of my own social circle.
Twitter and Facebook both had a place in my life. One was for keeping up with people I knew, and one was for meeting people I didn't.
Then the media got hold of them, and the masses arrived.
Twitter counted 200 million monthly active users in December. For Facebook the number is now over a billion. To any would-be billionaire, the popularity of these two little Web sites seems an obvious jackpot. Social networking sites were clearly where it was at. "It" being money, of course.
From two social networks that can easily slot into one's lifestyle, suddenly we have a plethora. We have Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, Weibo, Wellwer, Faces, Students Circle, Diaspora, Goodwizz, FullCircle, Foursquare, Deviant Art, Ravelry, Filmow, The Sphere... the list goes on and on and on.
Imagine if you were active on all of them? When would you sleep?
They say my generation wants to experience the world through a screen, but I disagree. We want to share our experience of the world through a screen.
New ones sprout up daily, promising some original spin, boasting some new niche. The problem is, social networking by its nature requires you to have people you can be social with. This means not only do you need to join the network, you need to convince your friends to join too.
When MySpace rose from the dead, at the beginning of the year, I tentatively, and with a bit of a prod from my colleagues, took a peek. I was surprised by what I discovered, quite impressed with the algorithm that suggested new music for me based on songs I'd said I liked. I liked the new interface, I liked being able to share mixes with friends.
The critical flaw, of course, was that there were no friends to share anything with. New MySpace asks you to create a whole new social networking profile, to re-add all your connections and tell the site, again, who you are. I don't know about you, but I'm bored of telling Web sites my life story. I want them to already know me like Facebook and Twitter know me. I want a familiar interface, a history. If I'm going to send a message out into the void, I want to send it once, and I want it to be received.
Sometimes, I fear that the next big thing might arrive while I'm too busy checking my notifications on all the other things to notice it. They say my generation wants to experience the world through a screen, but I disagree. We want to share our experience of the world through a screen. If we sign up for all the social networks, and maintain profiles on all of them, we will never have any experiences worth sharing, becoming slaves to the networks and the demands they put on our attention.
We've come around full circle it seems. Zombie MySpace wants to make a grand return, but fails to realise that while it happened to be the site to introduce us to the joys of social networking, it may also be the site that makes us realise we've had enough.
The land-grab is over, the shine's worn off. Now we just want to be left to post cat pictures in peace.
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