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November 26, 2007

Screenshots And Details On Upcoming MySpace “News Feeds”

Michael Arrington

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A Reuters article earlier today gave a few details on MySpace’s upcoming “new feeds” product (which is what Facebook calls their similar product launched a year ago. We spoke to MySpace and got a much deeper look at the product, as well as screenshots of how it will look.

The new product, to be called “Friends Updates,” will begin to roll out to users this Thursday, says MySpace. Users from New Zealand and Ireland, where Friends Updates is being beta tested, can already use it.

The new product will give users a steady stream of event information from their friends. Profile updates, blog posts and photo/video uploads are all noted. See screenshot to right (click for larger view) for a visual.

MySpace VP Products Steve Pearman told me that the product that launches on Thursday is just the first iteration; they have additional features slated for release over the next 18 months.


Key differences With Facebook News Feeds

There are a number of key differences between Facebook News Feeds and MySpace Friends Updates. A key focus of the product appears to be not pissing off users. Other differences allow more granular control of news distribution.

MySpace will only begin gathering information about a user once they’ve logged in and have viewed an interstitial page that notifies them of the change - until they see and click on that interstitial page, no information is gathered for the Friends Updates. Users are also given a link to a setting area where default options can be changed, or opted out entirely. This will hopefully help MySpace avoid the user backlash that Facebook faced shortly after launching News Feeds.

Users are also given much more granular control over who can see data. Specific friends can be selected to not receive updates. Pearman gave an example of not necessarily wanting your girlfriend to know when you change your status to “single” (although a quick look at the profile would let her know anyway). Users can also select from one or more categories of information to share.

The process distills down to a requiring a double positive - you must agree to share with specific friends, and they must agree to subscribe. Without both sides agreeing, the information doesn’t appear.

Pearman says to expect third party application access to the news feed in the near future. In fact it was one of the key reasons they built the product, he says.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Chris Saad

    November 26th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

    Any RSS and/or APML export?

  2. Kelli

    November 26th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

    I think this is a good idea to weed out what information is shown and what isn’t. I am really starting to get bored with Facebook, I mean how many times can you play Pirates or get Superpoked and be bombarded with notifications about it without getting pissed? Unless Facebook comes out with something new and really exciting, I think all those Googlers who left will be sorry they did.

  3. Michael Arrington

    November 26th, 2007 at 9:30 pm

    Chris - no RSS for now. Tearman says they’re worried about authentication issues since the data stream is customized for each individual. Frankly, RSS just for my own data stream would be welcome.

  4. Chris Saad

    November 26th, 2007 at 9:32 pm

    Worried about Authentication? What’s to worry about? Authenticated feeds are standard practice.

    If they want to out open Facebook, then they need to start getting these simple things right.

  5. Michael Arrington

    November 26th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    Chris - I don’t know If I’d want MY data, contained in other users’ feeds, available via RSS even with a password. Like I said, a feed of my own data would be great though.

    They are clearly being very careful with privacy, which is smart given what Facebook is going through right now.

  6. Rajeev

    November 26th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    Banal Enhancements can add no value to a portal.

    http://tekno-world.blogspot.com

  7. Boycott News Corp.

    November 26th, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    MySpace needs to think of something innovative. This is just piggybacking on the last social trend. If MySpace wants to win the compete long term with Facebook they will have to have ideas and innovate on their own. I don’t foresee this happening any time soon.

  8. Zaid

    November 26th, 2007 at 9:46 pm

    I totally understand the privacy issues related to letting folks export their data.

    But an rss of what’s in my news feed? That’s not much a challenge of any sort–on technical or privacy front.

    What is likely is that most of myspace users don’t care about RSS and thus the feature must be low on priority–which makes more sense than what their PR says.

  9. colon panama

    November 26th, 2007 at 10:15 pm

    refreshing addition to an otherwise pretty stale environment

  10. Tyler Wright

    November 26th, 2007 at 11:06 pm

    Myspace is still WWAYYYY better than Facebook at letting porn spam in my inbox.

  11. yongfook

    November 26th, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    “MySpace needs to think of something innovative. This is just piggybacking on the last social trend.”

    Actually I disagree. The “news feed” idea is not just a trend, it’s an excellent solution to a common problem within all social networks - how to show social activity in a simple and informative way.

    It’s so excellent and so natural that I feel it is becoming more than just a facebook product, it’s going to become an essential, fundamental backbone of any social site we interact with. Like “messaging”. I’m sure there was, way back in the day, a site that was the “first” to implement private messaging between members. Now every site does it - it has become a best practice, a standard feature. We wouldn’t accuse a site of copying another for including messaging.

    Facebook executed their idea exceptionally well - the slider for preferences is inspired - but like all things, there is room for innovation. Don’t deride Myspace for “copying” a concept such as this - in a few years I predict social news feeds on social networks will be as essential as steering wheels on cars. Myspace should pour resources into making their social news feed product the defining example on the web, if they want to compete with facebook on functionality stakes. Looks like they’re already on the way.

  12. Aidan Henry

    November 26th, 2007 at 11:32 pm

    #7 - I agree. MySpace is simply following in the footsteps of Facebook - this goes without saying. The fact that they copied the platform and news feed features only further instils the dominance of FB. MySpace really needs to step up to the plate, look beyond the horizon, and tap the minds of their visionaries (if they have any). They cannot keep playing catch-up forever. Eventually the clock will run out and FB will pull ahead…

    Cheers,
    Aidan
    http://www.MappingTheWeb.com

    PS. Does anyone over the age of 20 actually use MySpace (artists and musicians aside)?

  13. Henry Aidan

    November 27th, 2007 at 12:13 am

    Good point #11.

    BTW, Aidan (#12), the first news feed update/feature can be attributed to LinkedIn way back in 2003 (Bob has just added 1 new connection). Who’s copying who now? :O

  14. duhmoment

    November 27th, 2007 at 12:32 am

    This news feed implementation is comparable to Friendster’s and not Facebook’s. It only states very high level changes.. “John has updated his profile” doesn’t tell me much… If I were to look at his profile now I may or may not even know what was changed… did he correct a typo in his music interests? how about new friend adds?

    Does it still provide value to the users? yes certainly, but not as much as FB’s news feed. I’m not sure how effective these “me too” features will be in the long run… users will eventually realize that everything MySpace does to copy FB is only half as good.

    One thing I credit myspace for is that I’ve now learned how to read text overlayed on an exposed ass cheek used as the profile’s wallpaper. I use to complain on about white text on black backgrounds, but this is not longer the case.

    Bah… who cares about pleasing users if you’re focused on building an ad network anyways?

  15. 113.COM

    November 27th, 2007 at 1:32 am

    News Feed, the term per se, was an unfortunate misnomer of web2.0 made popular by facebook, to the point that the original meaning of the term, since the advent of the arpanet/nsfnet/internet (and usenet/uunet/nntp etc in parallel) for two decades since 1986, is now redefined. Who copies who? Lame.

  16. Vero Pepperrell

    November 27th, 2007 at 1:38 am

    Does it REALLY matter who’s copied who? What matters is whether the information provided will a. be useful to the user, b. still respect basic user privacy, and c. keep people from leaving MySpace like rats on a sinking ship.

    At this point, I don’t think that a weeny little feed, locked within the site and providing such high level information that it doesn’t actually bring any benefit to the user, will help MySpace out.

    @#14: “One thing I credit myspace for is that I’ve now learned how to read text overlayed on an exposed ass cheek used as the profile’s wallpaper. I use to complain on about white text on black backgrounds, but this is not longer the case.”

    Great, you made me spit my morning coffee out! :P

  17. elegance

    November 27th, 2007 at 2:23 am

    didnt myspace die a few months ago already?

  18. JohnofScribbleSheet

    November 27th, 2007 at 2:45 am

    Well at least Myspace are trying, but they are not innovating.

  19. I Am Not Posting To Spam My Blog

    November 27th, 2007 at 2:46 am

    “Pearman gave an example of not necessarily wanting your girlfriend to know when you change your status to “single” (although a quick look at the profile would let her know anyway).”

    God I hate social networking people. So they’re apparently incapable of having an affair without changing their profile. Where did humanity go wrong?

  20. OpenSocial Blogger

    November 27th, 2007 at 3:05 am

    One of the reasons that they’re releasing this now is because it’s one of the core aspects of the OpenSocial spec; in order to be a real OpenSocial container, MySpace needs something that they can hook into the Activities data API.

    When Pearman mentions giving “third party application access” to the feeds, this is exactly what he’s talking about.

  21. Ingrid

    November 27th, 2007 at 3:42 am

    I always laugh when I see the posts implying (#12 or #16) that Facebook’s growth is coming at MySpace’s expense. Accoring to Comscore, MySpace had 72MM users in the U.S. versus Facebook’s 32MM, and the trends show that gap is getting bigger, not smaller. That is not a close race.

    The numbers seem to point to the fact that Facebook has peaked at less than half MySpace’s size, and unless they can think of something truly innovative to spark a next wave of growth (apart from telling all my friends what kind of underwear I buy) I think they are done.

  22. Tal

    November 27th, 2007 at 5:22 am

    MySpace copying Facebook is not surprising. MySpace was originally founded by copying Friendster and other social networks at that time.

  23. Ryan Merket

    November 27th, 2007 at 5:26 am

    All you Myspace employee’s can say what you want — but this is a direct copy of Facebook.

    Why not sit down, bust out the whiteboards, and think like a user. Come up with something that will send Facebook scrambling for more innovative ideas.

  24. Alexander van Elsas

    November 27th, 2007 at 5:39 am

    The thing that bothers me about newsfeeds is that they provide useless “friends” actions. Right now I know that 2 of my friends compared movie taste, one scored points on a tv show quiz, another added some useless Facebook application and so on. This means nothing to me. It gives the user a false illusion of interaction. Compare it to streams such as Twitter or Jaiku. It is not the application that tells me that a friend has taste for some movie, it is the friend himself talking about it. Where twitter or Jaiku provides me free flow of thoughts, emotions, states of being provided by real people whom I follow, the Facebook or MySpace news feed provides me insight into their actions (which are meaningless to me). Monetizing the Social Graph. Big deal. And a sorry excuse for a business model.

  25. facebookjunkie

    November 27th, 2007 at 7:19 am

    I second #18.

    Myspace must innovate, not recreate.

    It must be a horrible feeling knowing you have competition, who a year earlier, was no where on the radar, now hot on your heels. Good luck hanging in there myspace.

    Going to go read the news feed already implemented on Facebook, now.

    Later folks.

  26. Josh

    November 27th, 2007 at 7:30 am

    It’s a good idea, but this market moves quickly. It’s only a matter of time (think weeks, not years) before the market shifts. Like the previous commentor…

    News Corp. has to stop playing catchup.

  27. file2fone

    November 27th, 2007 at 7:52 am

    It seems harder to agree friends in network to subscribe.

  28. tim

    November 27th, 2007 at 8:01 am

    #18: you appear to be the only one doing you homework and looking at stats instead of blindly guessing.

  29. bored and confused

    November 27th, 2007 at 8:05 am

    too little too late. facebook and imeem have both had this newsfeed feature for over a year now. facebook launched it last year and imeem actually had this even before them. both of these services are more cool and interesting than myspace. facebook for my business and college friends and imeem for my music and creative friends. and now with the addition of twitter, i really now have all the social feeds i need

  30. Permeate

    November 27th, 2007 at 8:15 am

    Just another example of MySpace trying to catch up to the real innovators over at Facebook. The MySpace platform is way behind the times. They will have to do a lot more than add a news feed to keep their users from flocking over to Facebook.

  31. mmt

    November 27th, 2007 at 9:48 am

    who cares? i have a facebook page and hardly ever check to see if my friends have picked their noses or are polishing their toes. i and millions of others aren’t interested in 99% of what our friends do.

    personally, i’m starting to get bored with social networks. i have a facebook page, okay, now what. what benefit do i derive from it other than keeping track of a few friends?

    myspace has a better chance to keep its users because it’s becoming a repository of their personality, tastes, etc. Facebook is just about meeting and connecting, which gets boring after awhile.

  32. Mitts Kane

    November 27th, 2007 at 9:59 am

    I really doubt most people on Myspace are eagerly awaiting RSS - people on this site forget that most people still don’t even know or care what RSS is. News feeds, on the other hand, have become a standard part of social networking sites, and increase page views by prompting people to check out each other’s profiles. No, it’s not the innovation Myspace needs to secure its lead, but it’s a necessary “catch up” feature.

  33. Gustaf

    November 27th, 2007 at 10:11 am

    Myspace is doing the right thing but it is not enough.

    1. Time/Unique Visitor will increase. Why? More contact areas.
    2. Number of Visits / Unique visitor will increase. Why? Interesting “updates” more often.

    How about the Number of unique visitors in total…
    The news feeds feature will not attract more users, simply because it is not offering “internet users” anything new they cant get at other websites.

    They have a unique position when it comes to the music. To attract more unique visitors why not take the MUSIC on myspace to the next level. Enable free record releases (e.g. Radiohead), Myspace Mobile TV, Exclusive concert tickets, A complete Playlist system for mobile devices, ipods, computers, online etc. A funding system for fans to support their favourite artists and get first hand tickets. Music/GPS solutions with features like what artist is around and who is coming next week…

  34. Darwin

    November 27th, 2007 at 10:13 am

    Good point, mmt.

    What many here seem to forget is that most people do not keep up with the feature sets available on social networks, they go where their friends are.

    Geeks, marketers, and entrepreneurs keep up with that kind of crap.

    Most ‘cool’ people are on myspace because they actually go out and see bands, party etc. College kids aside).

    @23, whatev, facebook developer. Who has the vested interest here?

  35. BloggersNewsroom

    November 27th, 2007 at 11:46 am

    MySpace seems to me like another Microsoft. Nothing innovative except to copycat. On the bright side, Myspace is owned by a powerhouse Hype machine.

  36. dave mcclure

    November 27th, 2007 at 12:20 pm

    point #1: no, MySpace doesn’t really need to innovate. they’ve got 3-4x as many users & 1-3x as many page views. if they simply copy FB innovation, they’ll do alright. it would of course be *better* if they did one-up FB in a few places, but it’s not *necessary*.

    point #2: imho, double opt-in for feed visibility (for both publisher & subscriber users) is a bad decision, at least from an adoption perspective. guarantee if they don’t change that they won’t get traction.

    anyway, good to see MySpace doing something. they’re certainly a notable competitive alternative to FB, and they aren’t going away soon.

    - dave mcclure
    http://500hats.typepad.com/

  37. Paul

    November 27th, 2007 at 1:18 pm

    I love the new myspace updates. It’s pretty sweet and not to stalkerish, just the way it should be.

  38. agnes

    November 27th, 2007 at 2:12 pm

    so it’s not an opportune time to be using the laptop, what with my being stuck outside on a lovely day, lurking on the steps like an odd and covert electronics user, but perhaps it is the perfect time, as stuck, i have little else better to do…

    so dave, i couldn’t have put it better. you are spot on.

    myspace has little need to innovate due to its large and rather loyal following. although most of my friends fall into the stereotypical FB demographics, they are still on myspace, albeit with private profiles, and they are not taking their entrenched social graphs anywhere. being not in tech [finance, advertising, marketing, healthcare, the arts], they could care little on the newest tweaks/interface changes. the only thing important to them is that the site works. and when spammed daily with the latest silly porn vid, they don’t even care enough to delete the offending entries.

    i prefer my FB account over myspace, and while i have a few friends on FB, they are only on every once in awhile to humor me with a random posting.

    and yes, we are certainly over twenty. :-)

  39. agnes

    November 27th, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    @21
    hilarity, and agreed.

    a friend of mine signed onto FB at my urging and was horrified when she realized that her “___ likes men” and shortly following that, “___” likes men in tight shorts” and then “likes kitten boiling” joke was displayed to her friends and coworkers throughout the day on the public feed. it’s been a dog’s age since she signed on since, or so she says.

    today, i found that in finally joining a regional network, i automatically defaulted my profile to open status to everyone within that network. not happy.

  40. Steve Ballmer

    November 27th, 2007 at 6:56 pm

    MySpace - News?

    I’ll read the national enquirer first!

    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  41. b-side

    November 27th, 2007 at 7:04 pm

    I suspect news feeds/ friends updates will be a standard feature in all future mainstream social networks. It’s just a good idea and it works. Control on what you want to stream and to whom also makes a lot of sense.

    It will be interesting to see what new features these both giants come up with next but i hear a lot of people complaining on the restriction on the facebook group pages in terms of creative expression with the ability to insert widgets. Why are widget not allowed on group pages on facebook… anyone listening at myspace?

  42. barefootmeg

    November 27th, 2007 at 8:15 pm

    so it looks like the myspace feed will be a step up from facebook, but still a far, far cry from the feed that multiply.com has had since the site started in 2004.

    multiply’s feed is ridiculously customizable (you can limit it to display only a specific kind of post from only one specific contact, or you can open it up to every type of post from every person in your network, or set it anywhere in between.)

    and yes, multiply has rss for this feed that’s matches whatever custom (or default) settings you’ve set the feed to.

  43. Jack

    November 28th, 2007 at 4:04 am

    At least it seems like MySpace thought about the privacy issues — I guess the disasterous Facebook feed debut made that obvious. The mainstream news was all over FB until they fixed it up if I remeber correctly..

  44. Jose Hernandez

    November 28th, 2007 at 4:52 pm

    The test regions, New Zealand and Ireland are both regions in which Bebo is the number 1 social network by far.

  45. Briana

    November 28th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    MySpace failed horribly at its “new” feature. I almost feel bad for them. Then I realize they are a billion dollar company yet can’t hire a trained staff so I have no remorse. The reason why people are leaving MySpace is not because they can’t put together an actual useful new feature. It’s because somehow they are always “sorry an unexpected error has occurred”. Really you’re sorry 20 times a day MySpace? Ridiculous. How about they stop trying to think of ways to fit more advertising on their site and actually fix it?

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