Your Opinion: What made MYSPACE successful?
 

Social Networking? Friendster and others pioneered this. Why did Myspace overtake them?

Customized user homepages? User-created free homepages have been around for a while (e.g, Geocities, homestead, tripod, etc etc)

Blog Network? Livejournal and blogger have been around longer and have extensive linking capabilities.

Or is it the combination of all the above and other user tools in one easy to use package?

Or.... the quality of the 'population' they recruited who then referred their site to friends and made it 'cool'?

What, IN YOUR OPINION, turned myspace from a startup to a $500+Million NewsCorp acquisition?

the fake celebrity profiles convincing their fans they care.

i remember there was cpixel.com. same type of thing, real simple, i figured it would blow up. myspace was around first for music artists and i guess it just caught on by word of mouth and became a trendy thing because it's free and sort of like an aol type chat service...

Lars made it successful

I like myspace because of the domain name :2 cents:

i think it was the customizing pages and music appreciation

plus friendster was ALWAYS down

because it's a dating site for shy people mainly.

it's free, people get off on having tons of 'friends'. it's also a blogger.

Man I get so much pussy there it's unreal. I love the place

cpixel's nice. Very clean layout. Cool mods. Mostly latin crowd. Cool crowd. Very positive environment. Not a very big community though.

naked chicks....hands down

functionality

All of the above, but more importantly, Myspace has become a place to find people to date. Basically, Myspace.com has become the free version of AdultFriendFinder.

i think it was all their features combined with the interface. they kept the site very simple and clean, easy to use. they also keep their advertising to areas where it is best suited.

beyond that, the url is much better than any of the other similar services.

it's a good product and a great user interface, probably some lucky too. :pimp

myspace seems to be a dating site, with out really being a dating site..

it's a cool and free way to reconnect with people.
here's mine:

http://www.myspace.com/rookieapril

And the amazing idiots that actually believe that it?s really them.... :1orglaugh

KMR Stitch's myspace profiles helped them maintain a stable stronghold on the internet community

i think its a combination of a good domain... (wtf is cpixel?) also having all the current features that technology can easy support right now and finally the chances of a good word of mouth marketing spread... then offer it all free and you have yourself a monster

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

"Login is temporarily disabled while we fix some database problems. We'll be back shortly. "

KMR's empire in risk

myspace is good for finding chicks, except for the 14yr olds pretending to be 18 lol

They brought everything together in one place.

ii would guess that is the single biggest contributing factor.
:2 cents:

You gotta remember that the group behind it, Intermix, are brilliant marketers and the celebrity profiles, which there are thousands of them gave them instant credibility. Perception is everything.

i think it's a fad thing

sort of like aol

Exactly. They brought all of those pic rating sites, teen forums, livejournal & friends and the rest of that shit together on just 1 site that doesnt have any graphics (except banner ads) for quick loading. Those kids that were on live journal, pic rating sites, etc. found their holy grail on myspace because of that.

When models, bands, actors, etc. all jumped force and people were able to join their friends list, etc., I think that really made a statement. If something on the net is so big that celebrities are joining it, you've got gold.

I think that it is a combination of all, and the fact that it was marketed to the kids in Cali first!!!

you answered your own question
all over the shit they combine to together makes for easy use by the emo's of the world to unite!

Do they make cash? Is this etoys all over again?

hahah, that is so true! :thumbsup

What can I say?

Outsourcing can't touch the quality of work I did.

I like that.... has a very Taoist ring to it. :winkwink:

Good point. There's DOZENS of sites like myspace but really...it all boils down to how they marketed the community and which small pool of 'tastemakers' or 'buzzmakers' who formed a core community within the site.

I guess, Myspace's success does illustrate the notion that growing a profitable community or forum is like running a successful NIGHTCLUB. It's the characters and the people they draw in which starts an upward spiral that fuels itself.

I remember lurking this board back in 2001 when you have Diabetic Rage and Dirty Sanchez and other 'characters' stirring shit up which brought out other characters. It then fed on its own momentum and exploded to the self-sustaining entity we know now.

It's definitly not because of their server stability, 99.9% uptime or superior scripting.

"Sorry! an unexpected error has occurred.
This error has been forwarded to MySpace's technical group."

:)

huh...emo kids of course....how else can you think otherwise LOL

Those emo kids sure know how to refer a friend :1orglaugh Enough to make Tom and crew $500+M :thumbsup

Music, personalization, free, friends, blogging, indie culture. They got the mix right and beat Friendster at their own game. I give a large part of their credit to Friendster. People that use it wouldn't refer to it as a social networking site.

Don't mean to bump an old thread but it's better than making a new one re same topic. Pls post your observations/thoughts/theories re what made MySpace successful.

friendster had horrible backend problems. couldn't take the stress and load and people bialed on them when the thing fell apart.

BINGO! viral marketing by 14 year old ho's.

either that or they read "unleashing the ideavirus" by seth godin

which i read evey year at least once.

The next question that is being begged to be asked................. CAN IT BE REPLICATED?

short answer: no

Maybe learn from it and come up with some core principles...not necessarily site specs?

Word of mouth.

Sure. I was talking about a replica.
The success can be replicated ofcourse but you need innovation.
lots of it.

Yes I think so, everything can be replicated, all you need to do is to create a better winner.

It's amazing that you can grow a site from nothing to $500 million dollars.

Specially when you look at the design. Smart guys!

:pimp

I never even heard of myspace till a few months ago....