The fundamentals of myspace
29/04/2008A lot of people think that myspace is a lost cause in regards to design. Ok, i’ll admit that it used to be. But myspace has changed alot these past months, some bad changes, and some pretty decent ones.
I will also be the first to admit that a lot of their changes are similar to facebooks, but in my opinion, facebook can’t pull them off. They throw the users all these new fangled applications which get abused right off the bat. Myspace on the other hand, as slowly but surely introduced new ideas and relinquished control in some areas.
There are a few things you need to know about myspace too before the bashing begins.
Their security has been updated to the max.
Now, any external link is caught and analysed. If it links to a ‘bad’ page, the profile it comes from is flagged as spam and put under moderation, and in more times than none, removed. Ok this maybe a little harsh if they miss read or underanalyse the link, but its worth it with the amount of spam that used to flood through myspace.
You can now also set captcha codes for people sending you comments, sending you messages, adding you as a friend etc so less robots can add you. Thumbs up for this one!
You can now also see mutual friends with the person who has asked for a friend request. Facebook had this first, but its good to see myspace with it! You can also [like facebook] write a message to the person you want to add. I rarely use this, but its a nice feature.
Admin page has had a facelift - and continues to do so
The old myspace admin page was ugly. No other way to describe it. The past months have seen myspace actually put some effort into the design of the site, from the ’skins’ on the admin page, to the upcoming header and moveable panel boxes. Sadly, it gets my excited.
Myspace has also introduced ‘apps’ to the home page which will be introduced shortly. These allow the user to have applications such as user maps etc on the admin page. This is a pretty good idea, and I look forward to see it being implemented.
Copying facebook once again, but not killing the idea is Myspace’s status updates and news feed. The status update has added a twitter like idea to myspace profiles, which has been used to the full extent by myspace users. The news feed isn’t as exciting, but allows you to see when people have updated their profile, added a new picture, updated a blog etc. Interesting stuff.
Because Myspace is finally back on track, my guess is that its user base will begin to grow steadily once again, and the myspace bashing will finally quit [its getting old now]
I enjoy designing myspace profiles as I have got to grips with its [shoddy] coding, and now its easy to recreate and implement ideas to a design. The lack of javascript support, external stylesheets, the ‘#’ symbol, external links [due to the MSPLinks] used to be a pain. But its also a great challenge to turn that butt ugly standard profile into something which makes people see myspace in a different light.
Facebook, to me is extremely limited on what you can do. Adding a friend is a task and a half, as most of the time you have to search through existing friends profiles to find this person. If you can’t find them there, you then have to use the search feature, which only displays a mini thumbnail of the person, from which you then have to figure out if its the right person or not. Tough look if the person you are finding is camera shy or puts up a random picture not of themselves.
See, this is where myspace wins. A personal URL which is easy to remember has to be alot easier than a long list of numbers with no relevance.
Facebook, in my opinion, is for the creatively challenged social users. And this is not a dig either. I understand why, if you don’t really care about the look of something, that you would be more towards facebook. I have just been using myspace for so long now, that letting go of the creative control would end up killing me. I have harnessed myspace, and now just waiting for it to bring out its new ideas so I can get familiar with them.
But then theres Virb…
No opinions voiced yet - lol