One of my MySpace friends just asked me why I think MySpace sucks. I always thought that it was something that is self-evident and obvious, but the comment made me wonder if I should be clearer about what exactly it is that I don’t like about MySpace.
I guess the reason I don’t like it is for a number of reasons:
1. It isn’t Wordpress.
This was the first reason I never really blogged here, because, well, I have been blogging for 10 years. I originally made manual html diary pages, moved to Blogger and then to Wordpress. And I have no inclination to change it because Wordpress is, well, fantastic.
Why on earth would I step backwards onto MySpace when I already run my own blog on my own domain? These things are not terribly difficult to set up, and, if you have a few bucks to pay a designer (like me), you can have a very cheap solution with your own branding that is much more flexible and has more income potential.
2. It is a programmatic dog’s breakfast
Not only is MySpace “down” more than it should be, the proprietary CSS & mishmashed programming is a nightmare.
The lengths I had to go to just to customise my MySpace to look even moderately tasteful was a whole lot more effort and time than I would EVER spend on a site. You’re just lucky I was bored one day and I need to network.
I am motivated to redesign my MySpace because it is a front for my business and I am a developer. I know what I am doing and it made me want to stab my eyes out with the nearest blunt object. Several times.
3. The interface is counter-intuitive and annoying
In terms of an interface design, it is, well, nothing short of frustrating. Of course, intuitive design and navigation is something that is subjective, but nothing fills me with rage more than skinning a MySpace profile.
All it takes is for one person’s giant glitter graphic to totally screw up your layout. And in an already frustrating navigation, and the often-ridiculously-overcustomised profiles, it very quickly becomes a web user’s brain kryptonite.
4. MySpace is full of Emos and famewhores.
Well, that kinda speaks for itself.
5. Even when a musician or artist has thousands of friends, nobody ever buys anything or even clicks.
It does make me wonder exactly what the point of MySpace is, when I receive so many automated “Add Me” requests and spam comments. Even for the musicians profiles that I have done and added affiliate links or whatever, nobody ever clicks anything.
My position on MySpace for musicians is “don’t bother”. Sure, put a veneer up with some msuic and pictures, but you can have a much better web presence by putting a blog up on your OWN site, with your OWN online mp3 store, and your OWN blog, with fans that will make the effort to visit you.
Whats more, there is no way of tracking your visitors, which, in web marketing, is a crucial part of getting maximum exposure to the maximum number of people.
6. Bulletins are ridiculously overused and abused.
I think that Bulletins should be a premium service that is used purely for broadcasting newsletter-type things, NOT memes about your top 10 favourite types of zip lock bags and to OMG-FORWARD-IT-ON-TO-EVERYONE-OR-YOULLDIE!!!1111!!!.
ITS CALLED A BLOG, PEOPLE! That’s why its there. The Bulletin should be used with discretion.
7. As long as MySpace exists, artists will not be empowered or truly embracing the internet.
I know that it is tempting to call MySpace a revolution for musicians. I actually don’t believe that it is. Besides the massive audience that MySpace attracts (and yes, in marketing speak, sure, its attractive for artists), there really isn’t much that MySpace can do that is any different to anything else.
There will always be a difference between the fly-night fans and your core audience. I believe that MySpace does nothing but encourage people to collect the former.
What musicians need, for income, is loyal fans that will buy their stuff, or pay a subscription for extra privileges.
Investing a couple of thousand bucks in a decent online community will get you further in the long run than MySpace ever will, because the MySpace folks are all about getting themselves exposed and are all about viral marketing.
Sure, it can work, and I am not saying that MySpace is necessarily *bad*, but at the same time, I think artists need to focus less on it and put their energies where it should be — on the communities they HAVE rather than the communities they seek.
All of these ideas are a part of the whole LinkArtist approach to creating a musicians online presence, and it varies from person to person, artist to artist.
8. Stupid Glitter graphics & bots.
Again, something that is obvious. They are annoying as hell.
9. MySpace originally reserved the right to use your content.
The Billy Bragg fiasco has gone some way to remedy this, but there is something to be said about Intellectual Property rights whenever you use a proprietary means of publishing on the web.
For a musician, all they have is their music. For a writer, all they have is their written work And for an individual (even though it may seem that people are willing to sign away anything in the name of fame these days), all you have is your public image.
I know that MySpace did go some way to remedy the situation, and this is from last year, but still, people should ALWAYS BE AWARE of what you are agreeing to on these sites:
“By displaying or publishing (”posting”) any Content, messages, text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, profiles, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, “Content”) on or through the Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services.”
This means that MySpace could use ANY part of your profile in any capacity, without having to compensate you.
Nice, huh?
There is nothing inherently wrong with MySpace as an idea, or even as a tool on the web. But I do hope that I can encourage artists to break as free from MySpace as possible and spend a few bucks to get it set up right the first time.
It is a necessary evil of sorts, heck, I have a profile and network with it. But at least be aware that there are alternatives that make for a much more positive environment to interact and promote yourself or your business.
May 14th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Téa, this is an interesting counterexample to a NYT article I read today: Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog. It’s a bunch of interviews with artists who have (mainly) used MySpace to get their bands off the ground and into a niche audience. I think there’s a place for MySpace - it’s a community that’s well understood both by artists and users, it’s a unified gathering place, and for all its (many, many) flaws it does actually do its job fairly well. Most artists would do well to have a primary dotcom site as well, like a friend of mine who has sold out two pressings through CD Baby.
The key is to be as accessible as possible, though as the article points out, communing with your audience is a fine line between them ignoring you (you’re too small) or you ignoring them (you’re too big, or too busy).
May 15th, 2007 at 4:46 am
You’ve hit the nail on the head there, Flashman.
Making yourself accessible as an artist is the single best thing you can do to get a web presence, regardless of the technology you use to achieve it.
But it is a really hard balance when it comes to something like MySpace. Having worked on t’other side, where fans can actually be very demanding, I can understand why many artists just give up on the whole web thing. I know that with Lisa, her inbox is filled with so many messages that it becomes almost a full time job just following up with MySpace. I cannot even fathom how the bigger artists manage it.
Billy Connolly delved in briefly, then I imagine he got overwhelmed by it all and deleted his profile. It does actually become really hard on somewhere like MySpace to engage with your fans when every fruitcake on the site messages you.
So, its sort of a double edged sword, where you want to engage with your fans, but the nature of MySpace, I would say, it is not a safe place to do it if you have a public profile.
Not only that, it is also a question of putting in time and what that payoff is. For me, I havent seen MySpace paying for the time we spend maintaining it, so anecdotally, that is my opinion. However, other bands (who are in the minority I might add) have success with it, so it really depends.
For indie artists, I do believe that there are other ways of doing things, but having a MySpace is a great way of getting your music heard. I particularly love the Perth music scene and will often just browse my friends’ friends’ for a listen. MySpace is EXCELLENT for this.
But I guess, like everything, when the teenagers infest it, it becomes harder and harder to manage
Personally, I think that having a song or 2 up on MySpace is a great idea, but making yourself accessible via there is asking for trouble, because people then come to expect it. I dunno, I guess in the online world, particularly with the younger folk, they don’t feel that there is any distance between them and their favourite musicians. Now, I don’t know, I do wonder if boundaries being broken down is a bit of a negative as well, where if you are even just a little bit in the public eye, all of a sudden you are indebted to people by virtue of having a MySpace profile! Its bizarre really. (I sound like an old fart longing for the days of ole, where we would write away with $10 in an envelope to a fan club!)
Especially seeing as our obsession with celebrities seems to be getting worse and more invasive… I dunno… there’s a lot of issues at play when it comes to how the entertainment industry meshes with the internet.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
:/
May 19th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Personally I mostly only use it because one of my friends tend to use it as their primary “email” - I seldom browse profiles etc because most of them are deeply unattractive and are filled with crap. I certainly agree with you on bulletins - people also tend to use them to send the same message about eighteen times. I suppose that comes from just accepting whichever stray people have decided to add me and worrying about it later - as such I seem to have mostly inherited camwhores and spammers, with a smattering of musicians and a small batch of people I actually know.
Their blog stuff is generally considered to be wank - it makes simple tasks a monumental effort.
I saw a lot of stuff about them claiming ownership of stuff in their terms - there was a lot of fuss in the webcomic world about it too.
But what do I know?
On the plus side however, imagine the horrors the people on there could unleash on sites otherwise. It keeps the teenagers busy, and in the case of most (not all) of them, they’re better off away from the general public.
June 8th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Two words: Amen, sister.
MS
June 25th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Interestingly enough you might like to note that they’ve done research showing that myspace/facebook etc apparently mirror class divisions in US society.
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/24/myspace_facebook_mir.html
Discuss.
December 1st, 2007 at 2:11 am
I agree with you for the most part, but I know that obviously since the majority doesn’t make it, some people that are pretty big now got their music discovered through Myspace. But I guess you really, really have to have talent to make it like they did, and not sound like every other band out there.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I think you bring up some good points (e.g. the glitter images), but I do think that you are being over argumentative about something that doesn’t really matter. And if you think that it does matter, then I do feel sorry for you.
You just seem to be arguing over something that does what it’s main target audience wants it to do, and I’m sorry that that target audience isn’t you.
Bulletins are just for sharing information, however big or small. I do find the crazy amount of “quizzes” and like you said the “OMG-FORWARD-IT-ON-TO-EVERYONE-OR-YOULLDIE!!!1111!!!” but you just have to look past those and just remember that they have the right to do that and if you REALLY don’t like it, just delete them from your friends list. Simple.
I just think it is a great place to talk to friends and bands. Just use other websites for other things. Like this one for your blog, much better than what Myspace has to offer. So just use this instead.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
A lot of the flaws that you mention were the main driving force when i created fixagig.co.uk which is a tamed down version of myspace. I created it for musicians only (currently wanting to gig in the UK) and only allowed a few choices of background colours and no layout changes, since I find it really annoying browsing myspace and not being able to find what I’m looking for because of the daft layouts and black backgrounds with black text. If musicians really just want to show what they can do in a musicians community, then thats what they can do, without chainletter messages and the site visitors can easily find the part they want since every account is laid out the same. Also, the only interactivity currently allowed is for venues to book the acts or listen to their music.
I know it isn’t as big and well known as myspace but I think the fixagig members benefit more from that than they do from their myspace accounts. I think myspace has had it’s day and was popular because it was a new idea which, with the evolution of the web has become a rather pointless idea.
Apologies if this sounded like a plug for my own site but I thought this was a very relevant article to why I created it in the first place.