What Killed MySpace? (It Wasn't Facebook)

hi welcome to another ColdFusion video myspace was one of the first social networking sites to reach mass adoption it was worth 12 billion dollars and out ranked Google as the most visited website on the Internet it was the place to be and took the world by storm I like MySpace a lot it's it's a friendly environment to me like I made a lot of new friends it's a great place to share music videos but I think every page you go to has got graphics and flashy stuff to catch your eye everyone had a myspace account and there were all eager to find out what these new social networks were about and then all of a sudden people just stopped using it Facebook overtook MySpace not because Facebook was good it was the fault of MySpace themselves this is the story of what killed MySpace ah mm when Napster and mp3 torrenting was king ipods and zooms were the hottest thing hip-hop and emo were dominating the music scene prime TV was heroes and lost back then YouTube was fresh and all of the content being produced was unpredictable and exciting amongst this backdrop but earlier in the decade was one of the first popular social network sites it wasn't Facebook or even MySpace it was friend stuff a social media networking site from Malaysia created in 2002 it showed a lot of promise as Friendster grew it inspired a few employees of a universe an internet marketing company among these employees was Christa wolf and Tom Anderson with these two at the helm the e universe employees quickly began working on their own social networking site after realizing the potential of the friends to concept using a rapid web development tool called cold fusion no relation they had myspace ready to launch within ten days within the internal emails there was even a competition to see who could sign up the most friends with a thousand dollar cash prize being up for grabs myspace launched in 2003 and grew quickly people flocked to the site and it became the largest tech success to come out of Los Angeles myspace was through a friend of mine I know what exactly was but she told me it was something over the Internet you create your own account and profile right now some people were like I hate myspace F in MySpace and then as soon as you're on myspace so I call who's that and they start looking at pictures of my myspace page has a saw I took this this picture that I created in Photoshop as my background I'm a people person I like to meet people it's just cool how you can like meet people on on the computer there's like virtual realm a couple of years later in 2005 myspace was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for an enormous amount of 580 million dollars now today people are finally realizing that it makes sense to advertise in social networks or communities back then no one believed that I have would ever come so you know there was a meeting between myself mr. Murdock Peter Chernin and a Ross where I explained the business model very simply I said that you know this is the perfect media company the users generate their own content so you have no content costs the users invite the friends so you have no distribution or customer acquisition cost and all you need to do is sell the ads literally at that moment we knew a deal was done I mean deal with them that quick we shook hands on a price so you're the guy with the money in the room he said yes deals not twenty minutes later this signaled the first time that traditional media recognized the power of social networking things were looking good for myspace earlier in the same year myspace was given the opportunity to purchase a small website called Facebook however Zuckerberg is asking price of 75 million dollars was just too much in MySpace's eyes this is perhaps the first bullet that myspace shot into its own foot but they wouldn't realize it until it was too late in 2006 only a year after News Corp's acquisition myspace was surpassed Google as the most visited site on the internet I read that myspace I think it is it's the one that's just super popular I mean it's just huge if they do like ratings now of social networks and it's just off the chart Rupert Murdoch's News Empire was evolving into the digital age myspace quickly became one of the future pillars of News Corp 2007 was a great time for the company was the undisputed king of social networks and its user base continued to grow but Facebook that small start-up which they had passed on acquiring only two years prior was gaining momentum but for now it was myspace as time there was no reason for them to be looking over their shoulder myspace had an 80% share of social networking traffic while Facebook its nearest competitor had 10 times less traffic my space busted 300 million registered users and the company was now worth that twelve billion dollar mark why is this website so addictive myspace has totally changed my life it's a place where I can just spend all day doing absolutely nothing but chatting and posting so how did you get into this website my friend told me about it the cracks began appearing soon after the acquisition the founders Christa wolf and Tom Anderson were now supposed to report to executives and this usually meant jumping through corporate loops to get things done and this is a key factor one main advantage that startups have over big companies is their ability to make decisions and implement them quickly with its acquisition at the hands of a media giant myspace had lost its startup edge the company had financial objectives to me now each quarter executives stressed to meet advertising revenue targets this meant that monetization was put ahead of the product and the consumer experience News Corp was even trying to push lowbrow ads such as rotting teeth and weight loss but Christa wolf had to fight hard to stop this from happening all of this constrained myspace while across town Facebook was free to add features as they pleased Facebook also allowed external developers to build any applications for the platform MySpace on the other hand tried to build all of their apps in-house this was a fatal flaw soon myspace Apps became fueled with bugs and the company struggled as they realized that they bit off more than they can chew this of course led to bad user experiences another fundamental problem was the site's architecture initially built with the software ColdFusion no relation the site had soon outgrow in the programming language while it was good to get to market quickly and beat out the competition it wasn't suitable for scaling myspace past 2005 by now it was too late to change to open-source software as this would have taken years to implement this wasn't an option as myspace was growing exponentially at this stage so myspace switched to dotnet which was described by Krista wolf as Fred Flintstone build database it wasn't flexible and it was hated by developers from the perspective of MySpace all of these issues may have been easy to ignore as the website was still growing by 300,000 people per day however myspace is next problem couldn't be ignored so easily stories began to spread about miners being exposed to adult material on myspace in response attorney generals all over the United States began launching investigations into the safety of myspace the company had to quickly scramble to implement safety and privacy measures as this happened their development cycle turned into crisis management and innovation was left by the wayside for Facebook this controversy around myspace was a blessing in disguise the company was able to hide behind myspace as they took the brunt of the public's concern it's called myspace calm it's a place on the internet where teens can socialize with other teens and meet new people I do so myspace is a little frightening at times because I feel it's an open window for people that you don't know I found out about it pretty much the way everybody else on them out about it don't know if parents found out about my kid is on it it can be bad you know you get the messages from people who are just kind of creepy kind of makes you wonder who's on myspace myspace also couldn't build a proper spam filter so this only fueled the perception that myspace was a seedy place with buggy apps extensive ads and this new CD perception it was all too much and myspace had gone past the point of no return soon a shift in momentum happened people began to switch over to Facebook and in 2008 Facebook overtook myspace in global users with this myspace is fall from grace had begun meanwhile Rupert Murdoch head of News Corp shifted his focus from MySpace to his latest acquisition The Wall Street Journal in 2009 with Rupert Murdoch seeming not to care about the company and being overrun with competitors such as Facebook LinkedIn and Twitter the two founders Christa wolf and Tom Anderson went on TV to speak with Charlie Rose it was a last-ditch effort to get Rupert Murdoch's attention perhaps this interview would make him realize the potential of MySpace again it didn't work a few months later founders resigned in to lesser roles in the coming months 30% of MySpace's u.s. employees and 66% of overseas employees were laid off the new CEO of myspace resigned only after just one year his successor lasted only four months the ship was sinking Silicon Valley is buzzing about whether Rupert Murdoch will dump myspace take a look I mean the company loses cash every year been losing cash since new scribe bought it in 2005 and also it's losing traffic to users leaving myspace going to people like Facebook in fact one user calls MySpace the CB radio of social networking sites News Corp cut their losses in 2011 and myspace was purchased for 35 million dollars by specific media group and Justin Timberlake yes Justin Timberlake the singer myspace had multiple redesigns in an attempt to resuscitate a once most popular site in the world but so far nothing has worked in myspace has been sold two more times and is now in the hands of the Meredith Corporation another problem for myspace is that you could easily delete your account and it was permanent Facebook on the other hand was much harder to get rid of everything was waiting for you if you ever decided to come back on the platform the newest direction for myspace is music it's trying to become the social network of music lovers and musicians this makes sense as myspace was always heavily focused on the music aspect of the network but looking at the site in 2019 it feels like a weird combination of news YouTube and social networking it's difficult to see what separates today's myspace from any other website meanwhile Facebook is going all out after buying whatsapp and Instagram and integrating all of their chats in one platform they just announced Facebook dating on the other hand though Facebook is universally hated by the public and young people in Western markets are leaving their core service in droves I wonder how myspace would have fared and how things would have been today if they had stayed the kings of social media you may remember Tom Anderson he was everyone's first myspace friend a historical internet figure but what happened to him [Applause] dude chomps yep the Tres sent you I know right hey Tom here's a Bolton you've ruled these days Tom finds himself an advisor rolls with his Twitter blurb reading enjoying being retired his newest passion is photography he travels around the world and actually takes some decent photos but apart from that life seems pretty quiet for Tom these days he's probably enjoying those millions that he earned from selling that company when it was near as prime myspace once worth twelve billion dollars it was the most visited site on the internet had customisable profiles with music it was the place to be in the mid-2000s so what killed myspace the outdated programming language the past on purchasing Facebook the news corp acquisition the unsafe and negative brand image the ads all contributed to the demise of myspace ultimately it wasn't Facebook's superior product that won them the barrel it was myspace as bad decisions even Sean Parker Facebook's first president said that Facebook only one because myspace blew him and myspace is another case where a company just blew it Facebook had no chance to win we should not have won the market the network effects at myspace were so powerful the only reason we won was because of the gross incompetence of myspace systematically over a period of many years did I just say that publicly and there you go it just goes to show that sometimes it's not about being the first it's just about being the last all the remains of my space today is the nostalgia oh man my Ma's space is banking but my space is highly recommended and I love it I'm glad I creamed out through mine so that was our look at my space it was really interesting to take a look at the recent history of the 2000s it was such a unique time and we'll just entering a new paradigm it is amazing to see how our conceptions of social media has changed since then back then it was new and exciting now we're much more aware of all the dangers involved anyway I'll be interested to know your myspace memories below and if you're interested in seeing how social media has changed our society I've got a video on that which I'll link after this if you appreciate this content and you want to see more videos don't forget to subscribe and share this video it really helps me out alright so I'll catch you again soon for the next video cheers guys have a good one cold fusion is a new thinking

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Views: 1,909,028

Rating: 4.9203672 out of 5

Keywords: Coldfusion, TV, Dagogo, Altraide, Technology, Apple, Google, Samsung, Facebook, Tesla

Id: Xs5bOyNTPLw

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2019