1. Does Facebook pose a substantial threat to MySpace?
“Unique visitor” is a metric to measure no matter how many times people visit a site in a given month that only count once. From the latest profile we could see that the growth for both Facebook and MySpace are stable while unique visitors of YouTube almost double at a very short time. Today, MySpace still has twice of Facebook unique visitors in the U.S. and the interfaces between these two are similar. However, Facebook does pose a threat to MySpace due to following reasons:
A) Facebook unique visitors overwhelm MySpace
Despite unique visitors grow stably in the U.S., the amount highly increase when measuring on a world basis. Actually, Facebook caught up MySpace in April 2008 in terms of unique monthly worldwide visitors. (Graph on right hand side is statistics from October, 2007 to October, 2008)
B) Facebook innovates more rapidly
MySpace founded a year earlier than Facebook but lack of innovation makes it change from a market leader to a market follower. Facebook dedicated to build multiple foreign languages to launch in more countries while MySpace tended to act in more traditional way.
C) Difference among functions and applications serving the customers:
a) Definition of “friends”: On Facebook the friends you add are usually your real friends in reality. On MySpace, people be friends even if they don’t know each other.
b) Privacy: Facebook set more limitations on providing a safer platform for people to keep their information in secret. MySpace has privacy but in relatively inferior.
c) “What’s new”: Facebook has two feeds rather than one. On Facebook you’ll know what’s new with you and what’s up with your friend but MySpace has former feed only.
April 19, 2008 was a historical moment that Facebook overtook MySpace as a social networking site leader. And Facebook now ranks number five, being ahead of MySpace, which ranks number six. Overall, Facebook not only pose threats to MySpace but successfully overpass. (See the pictures on the right.)
“Unique visitor” is a metric to measure no matter how many times people visit a site in a given month that only count once. From the latest profile we could see that the growth for both Facebook and MySpace are stable while unique visitors of YouTube almost double at a very short time. Today, MySpace still has twice of Facebook unique visitors in the U.S. and the interfaces between these two are similar. However, Facebook does pose a threat to MySpace due to following reasons:
A) Facebook unique visitors overwhelm MySpace
Despite unique visitors grow stably in the U.S., the amount highly increase when measuring on a world basis. Actually, Facebook caught up MySpace in April 2008 in terms of unique monthly worldwide visitors. (Graph on right hand side is statistics from October, 2007 to October, 2008)
B) Facebook innovates more rapidly
MySpace founded a year earlier than Facebook but lack of innovation makes it change from a market leader to a market follower. Facebook dedicated to build multiple foreign languages to launch in more countries while MySpace tended to act in more traditional way.
C) Difference among functions and applications serving the customers:
a) Definition of “friends”: On Facebook the friends you add are usually your real friends in reality. On MySpace, people be friends even if they don’t know each other.
b) Privacy: Facebook set more limitations on providing a safer platform for people to keep their information in secret. MySpace has privacy but in relatively inferior.
c) “What’s new”: Facebook has two feeds rather than one. On Facebook you’ll know what’s new with you and what’s up with your friend but MySpace has former feed only.
April 19, 2008 was a historical moment that Facebook overtook MySpace as a social networking site leader. And Facebook now ranks number five, being ahead of MySpace, which ranks number six. Overall, Facebook not only pose threats to MySpace but successfully overpass. (See the pictures on the right.)
2. Should MySpace join operations or invest in its own developer platform?
Although join Google’s developer platform, OpenSocial, may bring more traffic and match Facebook functions quickly without investing in more resources. However, the disadvantages of using the platform are obvious – it may also accept competitors at the same time. However, comparing to loss of independence and lack of ability to fight back on its own, develops MySpace own platform will be a wiser choice. Although invest in own developer platform will make two sites look too alike as well as hard to differentiate their services, the steadily growth of unique visitors on Facebook shown that those applications are what customers really need. What’s more urgent for MySpace was keeping up with Facebook and expand its market by contracting with more websites for services. Additionally, MySpace can highlight its personalized interface and try to make its customers happier.
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