Comments on: More on The MySpace Problem

By: andrew

andrew — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:34:49 +0000

i think the one page tracking is what alot of ppl like. on the home page of facebook. it tells u every change that has been made to the profiles in ur circle of friends.. where as in myspace, in order to see new pics. or posted items,, or any changes they have made.. u pretty much have to go look through the profiles urself. also.. alot of ppl dont understand coding. and u must use coding if u want even a simple profile layout. so alot of ppl find myspace more user friendly.

By: robert

robert — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 04:04:14 +0000

Speaking of design…
My reseach and diagnostics point toward the popularity being more ‘friend based’ than any real design issues. The tools are of course needed, i.e. social networking tools such as adding friends, profile pages, media sharing, messaging, etc.

So if a web app like this:
http://demo.oikosconsole.com
looks 100% better than either of the two is out on the market but not selling a ton would also bring up the FREE aspect of myspace and facebook.

It’s all about the ‘place’ where your friends are. Maybe we could start one called Cheers.
rp

By: wyszukiwarka

wyszukiwarka — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 14:44:29 +0000

great article!!

By: profilepitstop

profilepitstop — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:38:56 +0000

Again, I believe that one of the reasons why Mysapce is because of its functionality and the benefits. For me, web designers tend to look at the visual aspect first before on the use of the end product.

By: KAUSHIK DAVE

KAUSHIK DAVE — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 21:50:05 +0000

I think I’m addicted to your interesting blog.. keep up the good work!!

By: Ally

Ally — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:53:15 +0000

Part of the reason people will use both myspace and facebook is like he said, separate groups of friends and the biggest issue – most of the people that used facebook up until now, HAD to be college students. It was not always available to high school students. Myspace was always more accessible to a younger crowd or people that did not attend an accepted college. I think that is part of the reason myspace got so popular – it was more accessible. No requirements to join…

By: bestwebdesignblogs.com »

bestwebdesignblogs.com » — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 14:47:15 +0000

[...] More on The MySpace Problem Note: A follow-up to The MySpace Problem, published over at Vitamin. Many weeks ago I contacted Ryan Carson over at Vitamin to talk to him about writing an article on successful, but ugly, web sites. I had seen a lot of designers dismiss sites like Google and MySpace because they are ugly, failing to talk about their merits or what makes them successful. ( I also wrote Does Google Succeed Despite Bad Design? in response to two of them, but that was more focused on Google than it was on the general problem of being ugly and successful. ) In particular, I kept coming back to the question: is MySpace well-designed? Obviously, they’re doing something amazingly right…to have grown so fast and so big. I read Kathy Sierra’s piece: Ultra-fast release cycles and the new plane and it dawned on me that all this ugly-design talk is basically monday-morning quarterback. What matters is the perception of MySpace users. A few I talked to confirmed this: the service is their social life. So I wrote The MySpace Problem, over many weeks, through many stops and starts, and it is now getting some good conversation going. I’m happy with the piece, even though it ended up being much different than I had originally planned. [...]

By: letspushthingsforward.com > log

letspushthingsforward.com > log — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:07:12 +0000

[...] More on The MySpace Problem, by Joshua Porter. [...]

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 01:08:55 +0000

Sean, excellent questions.

I used MySpace as an example because more people are familiar with it. I would certainly include Facebook in the same discussion. Thanks for doing that…

I think it is quite possible that both services are very well designed. You seem to set them as direct competitors, but I don’t see it that way. People belong to both sites, and like your sister it’s probably for a good reason.

When we move to discussing design as “working well”, I think we have to talk about why and how people use things. This is a much more nuanced topic than the way something looks. And notice how we’ve gotten away from talking about how the site looks? That was exactly the point I was trying to make in the article. Let’s talk about how things work for people, not the way they look…

So, I think you’re right to distinguish between user sets. Both sites can be successful, each for their own set. There is no contradiction there. More important than asking is one designed better than the other is asking “how well do they work for their audience”?

Once we ask that…we get into a whole other realm, the realm of usefulness.

By: Sean Curran

Sean Curran — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 19:48:54 +0000

I am going to post a comment here beacuse vitamin is too full of comments for my point to be taken.

If myspace is sucessful because it is well designed, then why is facebook successful? If you compare the two sans-design, you will see myspace offers everything that facebook does (facebook offers picture hosting, but that is a more recent addition). You will also notice myspace has more users. Based on your logic that myspace has a successful design, there is no reason why facebook should be used by anyone. Yet facebook is used by people, a lot of people, and it keeps growing.

When I asked my sister (a typical user) which looks beter and which works better, she responded quickly with “facebook”. So based on this, it can be argued that facebook has a better design. Further questioning of my sister revealed that she uses myspace because she can post pictures in her comments and because of a different set of friends uses it.

I guess with all that set up my questions for you are:
Do you think myspace is better designed than facebook?
Why is would anyone use facebook if it is not better designed than myspace since it has less featuers, et al?
If you concede that facebook is better designed, than why would people use myspace still? (I certinally find my answer to be myspace offers services that facebook does not, and myspace has a slightly different user set than facebook).

By: Pauric

Pauric — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:17:45 +0000

Josh quotes Steve Jobs in the linked Myspace Article â€œMost people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks likeâ€¦ Itâ€™s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.â€

We need to seperate design from from functionality and both those from a products success in the marketplace. As in, why is myspace so popular if its poorly designed with woeful functionality? Well, the three are for a greate part unrelated, thats why.

Macs are a far superior design compared to wintel OS & hardware yet they command 3% of the market.

Cisco dominates the networking world with over priced, underperforming, propreitry, un-usable devices that require huge maintenance costs.

We can cite many such examples. Its rare to see a good design succeed on design merits alone. More often business strategy and a little good fortune dictate the success of a product.

What can I say ‘designers’, like Usability Testing in the 90’s we fight for recognition but the reality is we are not all that necessary for a successful product. We be the veneer on the larger picture and need to take a pragmatic view on how important interface design is.

By: billhd

billhd — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:54:23 +0000

Good point Aran! When we talk to potential clients, we have a shorthand for your point that goes like this:

Your website is not something you have, but something you do.

By: Aran

Aran — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:44:31 +0000

I think that too often existing companies view a website as just another “publication”. Just as with an annual report, they will focus a lot of energy on how the thing looks and things such as “pixel perfect” design will be highly prized. They think it is all about meeting a publication due date, only to ignore the site once it is “launched”. These sites almost always end up languishing 2-3 years down the line until the execs wake up and order another remodel and re-launch.

The sites that truly succeed are the ones who understand that the unique nature of the web is the fact that the average person in the public can contribute their opinion, and that success is found by focusing on the maintenance of a site rather than its initial launch.