Review: MySpace
To go through, sign-up for, and review the major players in the world of social networking is a major undertaking, and it seemed to only make sense to start with the golden child of the group, MySpace. Since it’s release in 2005, MySpace has been the biggest thing on the Internet. With it’s sale to News Corp. for $580 million, MySpace became one of the biggest, if not the biggest, websites sold since the bubble burst in the late 90’s, and has continued its unprecedented growth since then. Despite it’s obvious appeal to the masses, MySpace is hardly the answer to everyone’s online needs, and although users are drawn to the site, it seems quite obvious they would be just as quick to jump onto the next big thing. I hope you enjoy our MySpace pageÂ? and our review of the site.
When you land at the MySpace homepage, the look is what we describe as “not overly busy.” There are not a lot of ads (four text ads at the bottom of the page), which we felt makes the site more appealing. Instead, the space is used to promote different features of the site, like MySpace Music, MySpace Specials, and the recently added Videos. My understanding is the site has always pushed the music angle, so it makes sense to feature a band on the homepage, but they also provide a few “Cool New People” so the average user can get an idea of what is being offered. The tour was broken, so we couldn’t really review it.
The registration process is pretty straight forward, but there are a couple interesting things going on. When you sign-up, you are automatically a single, non-smoker, non-drinker. This can only be changed from the homepage. So you register, you upload a pic, invite friends, and then you’re at your own homepage. Once you are a logged in member of the site, you get way more ads. Tom is not our friend.
The school search didn’t work very well, and we actually found a bug when navigating throughÂ? and searching for our school. We did like the idea of adding multiple schools, but the school feature is something that should be built on. It provides an added real-world element that could provide added benefit for an average user. The networking feature was interesting, and for the most part we like the idea of it. It would take more time using the site to see if it actually had any real use though. The whole process of editting aspects of your profile seems a little clumsy overall. You click on edit, then click on a section you want to edit, then you click on a sub-section to edit, then you preview what you’ve done, then you confirm the change. It just seems to take a little long and goes against the Web 2.0 trend. The scripting for editing your profileÂ? is pretty much horrible, but I guess that’s why MySpace template sites have gotten so popular. If the server wasn’t so slow, we could have gotten more out of the customization aspects, but it was too much of a slowÂ? hack-job.
Messaging and forums seems to be on par with most other sites. The forums are quite active, but with over 70million members, that is to be expected. You can send friend requests, messages, leave comments on pictures, bulletins, and I think you can leave comments on other profiles. Like I said, pretty standard features that have been done so many times, how do you really do this wrong?
The photo system is average at best. The 600K size limit is respectable, but there is no indication as to aÂ? limit. Maybe there isn’t one, but it’sÂ? good to know that.Â? Only one picture can be uploaded at a time.Â? Pictures (yes, all pictures, not each individual pic)Â? can be given a privacy setting,Â? and it’s limited to you or everyone. The only options for an individual pic seems to be “Add Caption” or “Add to Ranking.” No albums and no tags. Doesn’t seem to be a slideshow option.
The video system is again back to the standard MySpace clumsiness. From the Video homepage, there are a couple sample videos to watch. When you click on one of the tabs, you are given a listing of videos or categories. The “Top Videos” don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason for being at the top. Most videos don’t have comments and haven’t been voted on. In fact, the plays on most videos were under 10. Definitely seems like something was thrown together without enough thought to make the system add value for the users. For example, if the video is on MySpace, you should be able to, with a single click, add it to your profile.
Most of the problems I find with MySpace seem to be byproducts of sub-par navigation. Nothing seems to flow well, and it never seems to be apparent where exactly you are on the site. Anything you do seems to require one or two more clicks than it really needed to. In my opinion, the site is a case of right place, right time, and because it worked the music angle, there was a bunch of free press/publicity from the music industry. Now, everyone’s there, so why wouldn’t you join up?
Appearance/Look and Navigation: 2.0/5.0 - The appearance/look of the site starts out okay to good, but goes down from there, and the navigation is horrible. Once inside the site, the ads kick in and the site becomes busy and overwhelming. It seems difficult to get anything done. Everything seems to require far too many clicks, and there is never anything that really indicates where you are. A secondary menu might be useful.
Messaging, Forums, Comments, etc.: 3.5/5.0 - As I mentioned, the messaging, commenting, forums, and basically every other way to communicate online has been done so often, it is almost impossible to mess it up. Having said that, there are ways to make it better, and I just don’t see it here.
Registration/Customization:Â? 3.0/5.0 - The registration process was fairly quick and easy, everything seemed straight forward. The one complaint I had was not being able to change certain aspects of my profile during registration, so if I don’t go in and change them after, they may be incorrect. Most important features should be editable during the initial registration process. The customization was horrible.Â? Having a safe-mode made sense, because it is probably easy to make horrible mistakes. The site isÂ? hard to customize for even a fairly advanced programmer - and that explains the popularity of MySpace template sites receiving so much traffic.
Images/Video: 2.5/5.0 - Another weak area of the site. Images are uploaded one at a time, and it seems like all images are given the same privacy setting. The only options you have as a user is to make the photo ratable and adding a comment to the photo. The video system seems like it was thrown together without really thinking about how to make it valuable for the users. Awkward to browse through and watch the videos, they could have made them one-click to add to profile, and I can’t even begin to comprehend how the top videos work.
Overall: 2.5/5.0 - Overall, the site is a pass. Even if I gave every single feature on an individual basis a “0,” I think I would be inclined to give it a pass. It’s just been too successful to think otherwise. Having said that, with the amount of money that has been sunk into the company, the potential of the userbase, and the competition in the social networking website market, MySpace should be better. There shouldn’t be links that don’t work,Â? features like the tour should be virtually flawless, and new features, like videos, should be added with usability and user-value in mind.
MySpace has a long way to fall before it really has anything to worry about, but it has a long way to climb before, feature-for-feature, it is even close to the best-of-the-best in the world of social networking websites.