Editor’s note: The following guest post was written by Mrinal Desai, who was an early employee of LinkedIn before he co-founded CrossLoop, a startup funded by El Dorado and Venrock. You can follow him on Twitter.
I try and test many social services and since 2003, there are only three that represent me—LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. MySpace was a service that I tried but it did not appeal to me personally for one reason—I wanted to connect with real people and I did not “see” them on MySpace.
I started using Twitter in early 2007, and it gave me something I cherish in the offline world – the ability to connect to real people who share my values and learn from them. It also has given me access to people I might never have otherwise been able to speak to. Through Twitter I have had conversations with the likes of Steve Case and Craig Newmark. I learn about new services and tools, read news when it happens and “my dumb questions’ give me instant gratification when people smarter than me actually answer them. Against all the initial skepticism of the people around me at home and at the office, I thoroughly enjoyed Twitter and also noticed that it was ‘stealing’ me away from Facebook and other services like Google Reader.
Yet now I am beginning to question if Twitter is turning into MySpace. Here are five parallels just off the top of my head:
• There is a competition for followers similar to collecting “friends” on MySpace
• Anonymity is normal on both Twitter and Myspace, unlike Facebook
• Fake profiles are proliferating
• Real celebrity profiles are also proliferating, but they are often maintained by someone else for marketing, leading to spam
• Finally, the one most evident visually—services like Twitback, Twitterbacks and Twitterimage help you customize your profiles. You can compare Britney Spear’s profiles on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook respectively (see screenshot below)
Recently The New York Times uncovered ghost writers like Annie Colbert who tweets for Guy Kawasaki, Lauren Kozak who tweets sometimes for Britney Spears and Chris Romero for 50Cent.
Furthermore fake accounts are surfacing. Twitter recently suspended (then reinstated, and then suspended again) an account that seemingly belonged to the actor Christopher Walken, to the dismay of Erick and his 90,000 other followers. But it was created and maintained by an impersonator. Then, on the other hand ,you have Tina Fey, who has publicly acknowledged it’s not her on Twitter yet her fake account currently has over 216,000 followers. Finally, there are many questionable accounts like Oprah’s, which has 9,390 followers without a single tweet – probably because she is working hard on her Facebook Fan Page, which now has over 420,000 fans. And finally, if you are still really curious to learn whether Russia is really visible from Alaska, you can @reply Sarah Palin here, here or here. (Just don’t expect to actually reach the real deal).
All of these fake profiles remind me of Julia Angwin’s recent piece in The Wall Street Journal, “Putting Your Best Faces Forward”. She notes that MySpace grew out of the ‘Fakester Revolution’ from the Friendster that denied anonymity. MySpace became the Promised Land for those who wanted to stay anonymous—it was so by design (pun intended). MySpace was about collecting friends – users like Forbidden and Tila Tequila amassed hundreds of thousands of them
MySpace did what it did as a competitive advantage against Friendster. Twitter does not necessarily want to go in that direction by choice – after all, it is suspending fake accounts and is removing the Auto-Follow feature favored by self-promoters. As Evan Williams freely admits, a lot of the different types of activity we are seeing on Twitter is not necessarily by design—it is driven by unexpected uses. Maybe the bling bling on the profiles, the fake accounts or ghost writers are unexpected, but sometimes it is important to also recognize that users do not always know what they want. I agree with Michael that staying true to your vision and pushing the envelope is what makes you a winner.
MySpace effectively exploited Friendster’s technical problems, but so far no one has been able to do the same whenever Twitter sputters. And I don’t think they will. The Achilles’ heel for Twitter is not technology – it is the experience (with the site itself and with other users).
Does Twitter want to be more like MySpace, which is cleaning up to be more like Facebook, which wants to be like Twitter? Where shall these three meet—in thunder, lightning or rain?
Out of all my networks, Facebook probably represents the most realistic.
On Twitter, it’s more about microblogging/interesting news and excerpts than keeping in touch with what family and friends are actually doing.
I think there’s a different way to approach the whole “what are you doing right now” problem through the use of already existing networks and communication mediums (mobile, for example).
Come on who are you kidding. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter. They are all the same. Fake profiles and fake users.
Big over-generalization there but either way, their value is rather limited in a number of ways to businesses.
Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
Not everyone is Fake..
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
Thats a fake phto you are displaying!
http://twitter.com/merlinvicki
LMAO!!!! You are totally right! That’s a photo of an actor.
So lame.
I agree with the blog post and also with the comments made by RD.
On Twitter we’re all reporters, sharing with our networks and distributing news we find interesting. Mobile communication is definitely the way forward and through technological advances we’re seeing amazing things already and it’s only going to get better!
@merlinvicki
So what..Can’t I use it? Are you using your Photo as your Desktop Wallpaper?
Same applies to Eric..
The title of this article alone is completely absurd. MySpace may end up trying to be more minimalistic, but unless Twitter starts to litter its users with more ads than content and enough flashing gifs to give anyone a seizure – it’s not gonna happen.
Thanks for the clickbait though with the crafty title.
The “5 parallels” are convincing, though. Except, even if Twitter is like MySpace in those respects, it’s still much more useful / provides much better content
Agreed. Nothing in those 5 points is making twitter “turn” into myspace, those are just features/attributes of twitter, and have been for a very long time.
Oh wait I have numbers 6-9
6. It is a website
7. It has a catchy name
8. lots of people are using it
9. It has a search feature…just like myspace!
10. They both display captcha upon registration.
I have given up on most social networking websites except for twitter. Less is more!
@shalin10
yes, l is m.
Perhaps in the end it will all end up as self hosted wordpress blogs with global avatars and some kind of global friends list.
Long live anonymity, the web has got too personal and lost its charm.
your moms a ball suckin tub o shit
Interesting that you enjoy sticking your balls into tubs of shit to know this.
Well illustrated about the “charm” of anonymity
Replace ‘anonymous asshole’ with ‘John Smith’.
What’s the difference?
Another way that Twitter mirrors MySpace is in the deluge of MLM and free this-or-that spam hitting my inbox.
That was one of the biggest turn-offs in my using MySpace…all of the silly (read annoying), unwanted solicitations. Seems to be happening in late-night cycles on Twitter now, too.
maybe I’m missing something but the only way way to get MLM messages in your inbox (DM) is if you choose to follow these users. We can’t blame twitter for these users if we don’t take the time to vet followers.
Just out of curiosity, I set up @mlmguy ( http://twitter.com/mlmguy ).
I sent 2 tweets in 40 days, and I have 133 followers!
I always feel dirty every time I find myself on myspace. All of the animated gifs remind me of remind me of Times Square and West 42nd Street in NYC before it was cleaned up.
One of the best parts of the facebook experience is the standard interface. Most people don’t have enough design sense to do a good job if give the chance (myspace being a prime example).
I’m not sure which site represents me or whoever else better or worse than other sites… BUT, I am getting tired of updating my status/profile/activity on 15 different sites. Any time I find new tools (FriendFeed and certain phone apps come to mind) that let me do something once and have it happen on all my profiles, I get very interested.
But we still have a ways to go before the conversation can be seamless across blogs/comments/Facebook/Twitter/FF/Amazon/Netflix, etc., etc.
Bob – ping.fm is good for this. Send one status and have it update all your sites (or only certain ones).
God, what all of you became to?
Are you all a global-syndication-news agency that should register with any freaking web application out there?
Seriously, I’d love to learn about reasonable common-sense explanation for why people need profile on each and every social network.
Anyone?
Don’t turn this into a false dichotomy with two extremes (one profile vs. one million). The truth is, lots of sites are used for different reasons and have different friends/colleagues on them.
People don’t “need” a profile on any site, but plenty want and use profiles on many sites. For those of us who do, some of us (me, anyway) would love to integrate/aggregate usage to save time.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll look into it… Now if there were only a service that could use your credentials from all your different profiles to aggregate/automate all your friends’ activities into one location, that’d be nice.
Throw on top of that a way to sort/sift/filter/search across everything by date/site/profile/friend/keyword, etc., and the one stop location could become a reality. As it is with current automation/aggregation, I still have to go to lots of different sites to get all parts of the conversation.
Michael, stamp this article right! http://tweetube.com/1kc
I could not agree with you more. I met YOU on Twitter, and just the other day I realized I never “see” you anymore. And believe me, I don’t follow those pseudo-tweeting celebs. It needs groups, and it needs more spam control. I think it used to be very controlled. So the business model might be spam:-)
At any rate, I have never been able to find anyone on MySpace. Facebook is better, until recently. But the recent changes have upped the noise-to-signal ratio. Filters are the next new thing.
Agreed that keeping the noise level down will decide the long term fate of Twitter. Facebook has way become way too noisey for me recently.
I have no “fake” profiles connected to me on Facebook and I think for a mature internet crowd (most of us), this works best.
When I post a message on my Facebook profile, people I know are getting the message. When I see a link or message on my F-Board, I can trust it and don’t feel like I’m being advertised to.
You’re being fed the advertisement on Facebook without asking for it. When that happens on Twitter, it will be over.
Twitter is starting to groan under the weight of the hype (not its own, but the media’s). I understand there is “no right way to tweet”, but if everybody’s expectation for the medium keeps growing, it can’t do anything but fail. And then there’s the whole monetization aspect… Paid accounts? Advertising? What?
I’m also starting to get burnt out on everyone who feels the need to send crap like “about to go into class. sux” all the time. Why would you send a brain fart like that to a friend, let alone the entire network?
If that’s true, it’s a good thing. MySpace makes money. Facebook does not.
But yes, the Twitter phenomenon is much more akin to MySpace.
I don’t see the similarities at all.
You can turn on/off the noise by unfollowing users. I never visit user profiles, so I have no idea what the backgrounds look like. When I do come across a profile it’s nice that 50 cent isn’t cranked up and that it doesn’t take 90 seconds to load 150 images and ‘bling’. And with twitter, I never visit my own profile where I have to respond to my inbox and add the latest widget or album or video or respond to comments (I’m guessing. I never used myspace. Only responded to my little sisters on that site – who are now in college and use Facebook exclusively).
There’s only competition if you are competing. If you don’t care and want quality information – then only follow the people you want to hear from. With twitter I feel the setup is far more like a feed reader – find the quality users sharing content you are interested in and your daily reading will be fantastic. Myspace was not externally focused in this way – it was all about YOU on your myspace page. If I go to my page on twitter, it’s all about reading the messages of the people I follow (externally focused).
I could care less about celebrities or fake profiles – twitter is not a site that you browse and discover (at least for me). The only way I come across a fake or spam user is if you follow everyone. And when you are reading updates it doesn’t take much to spot 140 character of pure crap. You can quickly block that user and you are done. If you have concerns about spam – then my suggestion is to not follow every request. Vet them out a bit.
I feel Twitter provides enough control for a user to narrow consumption for high quality. It doesn’t take much to find similarities between any site where users communicate online. And it’s not the services that are causing the points mentioned in this article – it’s the users.
The article should be titled “Are online users continuing to act like online users?”
@danaykroyd is a fake impersonator too – he is pissed about it
Really? Those are your comparisons to myspace? Bleh.
There’s no doubt Twitter is evolving–it’s certainly changed in the six months since I started. What I like about Twitter is that the majority of the community is committed to using it for good reasons. I think the community will keep it from going in the wrong direction (or pull it back before it’s too late).
The fake profile issue is easy to solve with a new service called ID Perfect
Out of MYvosi LLC, comes the face of Web 3.0, Maurice Valentino. Valentino never thought that out of his humble past that he would soon be the creator and innovator of the newest web technology that positions him to become the next Internet billionaire.
The Firm United LLC, which is a holding company for several companies including MYvosi LLC which houses Valentino’s genius creation, Myvosi Web 3.0, the wave of the future.
Myvosi Web 3.0 is a media/data exchange tool, a search engine that gains knowledge of the user the more it is used. It can be used for networking, it offers the most up to date encryption for product being sold/personal information and has a virtual mall with a presence of 250,000 national and international vendors in contract.In addition to your own personal virtual assistant that controls your every experience desire.
“It will challenge us and move us into the future now,” says Valentino. The site offers human deductive reasoning and inference. “Imagine a machine with personality that’s proactive,sounds like efficiency to me.” states The Face Of Web 3.0(Maurice Valentino).
Valentino also went on to explain in more detail what to expect from MYvosi LLC and Web 3.0.”MYvosi Web 3.0 is the successful marriage of artificial intelligence and the web. In addition we want to be efficient not only from an economical and an environmental perspective but also from an individual and technological perspective. Web 1.0 was for all to read, Web 2.0 was for all write and Web 3.0 is and will be for all to innovate.” personalize your future, live out your potential. Myvosi web 3.0 allows you to search by sentences not eliminating the keyword based search but expanding on it. You can type in sentences and in turn it would return relevant results and suggest other content related to your search terms. You can ask your browser questions such as “where can i go for lunch” and it will provide you, based on your likes & dislikes something suitable (human deductive Reasoning).”Many fear that this detailed information about them will be exposed, but it is the exact opposite,” says Valentino. Your likes and dislike /personal information are not publicized they are on an encrypted network using the same encryption’s as the one used by the major banks in the world(ex. the TLS and the high 128 bit encryption). This graduates the common concept of the current web, typing in the same information and getting the same information. What’s now offered is a unique individual experience on the web tailored to fit you personality. Myvosi Web 3.0 consist partially of “mashup” applications. An example would be looking up restaurants and have it tie in to another application(GPS) giving you place and directions. Myvosi Web 3.0 has the most intelligent software agent at the click of a button. You can share data files securely and efficiently without the threat of viral and other harmful applications (worms,Trojan horses,malware,etc) infecting your computer.A quote from Thomas Chille” For manifesting a web 3.0, we need a web 3.0. We need a real evolutionary shift in the perception of the web by the end users. Much like the paradigm shift in involving the user generated content for web 2.0.” Its purpose is to educate, create, and innovate the end User’s experience of the Web’s resources. It is the web’s Advanced Version Of the 3 dimensional giant”Second Life,”but Extremely user efficient. The applauding moment was simply this stated by The Face Of Web 3.0 “Most importantly Web 3.0 Is all of you. It isn’t the dominating player with the most Bank. It is about you (the user). We as individuals craft web 3.0. we all have a major role in its implementation” says Valentino. This is just an overview what Myvosi Web 3.0 offers. The detailed version would require a 1,000 paged text book and far superceeds what was said today. Myvosi Web 3.0 launch date is in the summer (July) of 2010.
Special Acknowledgments:
*Barack Obama in his spirited aura of change
*Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau who created the World Wide Web at CERN
*James Hendler An artificial Intelligence Researcher
*Nigel Richard Shadbolt founder of the Web Science Research Initiative
*Ora Lassila a Finnish computer scientist
*Computer Science University of Southampton
*Artificial intelligence department @ University of Edinburgh
*Eric Schmidt CEO Of Google
*Doug Lenat Computer Scientist Ceo of Cycorp
*Kevin Kelly Great Mind
If I left anyone out you are not forgotten, but for the sake of time, many more I give thanks to. Thank you all for your research , your time invested in making us better and more efficient economically and environmentally, America and the World thanks you.
A few pioneers of Green Energy who deserve recognition
*Scott mcnealy co founder of sun micro systems say that technology of the Internet is the most planetary efficient way of conducting business
*John Doer partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
says that Germany is the largest buyer of solar cells around the world
“These are point that should be noticed and implemented in our economic and environmental strategy and conducive to like such recovery” Says Valentino
*MIT chemist Daniel Nocera
*Thomas Hinderling innovator who wants to build solar island to make us more efficient.
*Texas oilmen like T. Boone Pickens started pushing alternative energy
*Steven Chu head the Department of Energy
just to name a few.
“These are a few of the people who have inspired me to offer the Next generation ready platform. I look at their stories and their desire to innovate and to make better. These are things and mindsets I was conceived in. These Great minds gave me the foundation to start myvosi and change the future. So I personally feel they deserve a great deal of recognition” Says The Face Of Web 3.0 Maurice Valentino
wow, wth? is there a cliffnote for that?
or a properly formatted version?
grandiose personality disorder much?
Woohh.What’s that..
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
Interesting article to read. Thank you.
LinkedIn and Twitter is all that I use. Never used MySpace so I cannot compare the two.
I have to agree with your comments here. I focus my social networking for recruiting purposes. Linkedin is where I started back in 03 as I felt they were the Myspace for Business Professionals, then I got going on Facebook and now recently with Twitter. The buzz about Twitter is getting louder and some are telling me they think it is the next Google. My recent job search was helped by my networks with Linkedin leading the way. Craig Silverman
Twitter is technologically inferior to Myspace. The primary benefit of it’s limited feature set is the simplicity of use and convenient interface on mobile technologies.
just can’t take somebody seriously who doesn’t know “its” from “it’s”
I can’t take someone seriously who doesn’t capitalize their letters.
Actually, I can’t take grammar trolls seriously at all, it just means they have nothing useful to say, but feel like blowing hot air.
one of the better twitter article
by the looks of it… yea
Although I agree with the authors parallels, myspace was basically created to help harness nigerian spammer appetites to defraud us. Twitter is more about sending a message out to a bunch of people who show interest. You don’t have to have a popularity contest if you don’t want to.
@lapp
Thoughtful post. The thing you missed in connecting MySpace to Twitter use is that it has a lot less to do with the service in question and a lot more to do with the people who use them.
Twitter really has little to do with it. It’s really about the Tweeters themselves.
I have been on social sites from a long time but twitter is very different from other sites and even Linkedin.
AMAZING INSIGHT…DO TELL
definitely yes.
Just because we realized that celebrities are ghost-writing on Twitter, we’re now comparing it with MySpace? What ever happened to one service providing least minimum feature with no clutter versus the other bombarding useless junk to people who don’t really care?
I’d definitely disagree with your assessment. Your ‘parallels’ are a bit off as myspace gives you the ability as much junk as you could possibly imagine.
Weak argument but good topic to get ppl talking.
myspace=13 or a pervert
facebook=22 or no “real” job
linkedin=33 and looking for a job
twitter=35 and wish you were 25
I know of very few real professionals who use this crap (note, they may have profiles, but don’t really use it.)
exactly. the real work of life (or relationships, or friendship) is done face to face, in meetings & work sessions. not this way.
Very interesting post. I guess twitter will fight spam better the mySpace just because the guys there are getting the ‘hit’ in such early stage in life.
Also, on twitter you get so many ‘thoughts’ (fake or not) that make subject interesting. E.g. http://twitter-...zz.blogspot.com or formula1-buzz.blogspot.com etc’
The difference is that Twitter provides an API thus allowing you to avoid all that customization crap.
once twitter adds photo galleries (they will) then yes its myspace 2.0
Facebook helps me maintain friendships.
Twitter helps me maintain interests.
They complement each other nicely and I hope it stays that way!
If I wish to use myspace fully, then I am forced to subject myself to my friends horribly made myspace page, ads, and crappy music. On twitter I can enjoy the entire experience through my nice and clean desktop app or iphone app.
That’s where the difference is for me.
Now how you going to mention the likes of twitbacks and the other two without mentioning the leading site Doctor Twitter …:-(.. disappointed
It doesn’t matter really because anyone who is a fan of a celebrity just wants the news about that person.. for instance, the Fake Jon Stewart twitter profile has 8,249 followers.. and this person who flat out says hes “fake” or not the real Jon Stewart (who is probably an obsessed fan) just spends his time updating the page about Jon Stewart and his followers love it. Heck, these fake celebrity twitter pages are probably updated more, better than the real ones would since celebrities are so busy, and most- actually boring outside the movies
Karla Escolas- Chitika, Inc.
@KarlaChitika
I do think it has lost its personal edge, its still there somewhat but people have really started to disconnect from their Twitters.
Myspace started to be very personal but after the crap storm came, people disconnected from their Myspace and stopped caring.
You and JOHN DVORAK seem to be the only real negative twitsters – time will tell. Real problem are the many fraudsters which kill anything.
For the record, i said it first on loo.me here in this article: http://loo.me/2...-than-facebook/
Now that Twitter is all the buzz it’s inevitable for more MySpace/Facebook marketing types to be appearing. However, think of Twitter like the real world. You have a choice in who you interact with and befriend.
If the problem are fake profiles, why are you following them?? I love that in Twitter you can hear only what you want to hear
I love Twitter for the clean, simple design. Even with a background, if you pick a classy/clean one, it looks nice. Oddly enough I found a nice site which is new enough to be left off some of the lists that offers them free (Heaven Graphics) and are not flashy or over the top. They are more business like or subtle.
I like Facebook for more in depth networking with friends, but the thing i dislike about it is all the seemingly millions of apps people are pestering you to use with them. I know many people make $ developing those apps, so I don’t mean to offend, but I really don’t need to send my friend virtual roasted peanuts or whatever. The ads on FB get annoying. As far as the layout that users seem to get up in a flap about, it always seems fine to me, not cluttered.
MySpace was something I could never handle. Been there, hated it for most reasons everyone else expresses…too much flash and bling, bad layout and extremely slow, even on a fast connection. I’ve been gone from MS so long I have no idea what improvements were made if any.
QUOTE
“John – April 1st, 2009 at 1:32 pm PDT
Facebook helps me maintain friendships.
Twitter helps me maintain interests.
They complement each other nicely and I hope it stays that way!”
Totally agreed, couldn’t have said it better!
Thanks for the thought provoking post.
Will Twitter Go the Way of Z. Cavaricci? http://tinyurl.com/cozlbb
Very interesting comparisons. I would agree with the fake users and spam ideas. Not so much the profile designs though. Although I do get annoyed by some Twitter users that don’t account for different screen sizes and their custom background gets covered up, it certainly is not has bad as Myspace and the crap people make on their pages. I don’t even go to my page anymore. I spend most of my time on Twitter and Facebook.
it’s all marketing; it’s why i join those sites.
we run a social network, it’s new, umakeitcool.com; and it’s different in that everyone can sell and buy from each other; no fake…california — fake — stuff.
just people who make, buy and sell music, videos, pictures, etc.
we let people make money… a monetized social network.
if you don’t get the game; that these social networks are there to game you; then you’ll a fool.
twitter is nothing but celebrity-ism, like entertainment tonight; except everyone is gaming everyone; doing nothing but getting followers.
and, hey, is it me or what, i don’t want to really follow anyone.
umakeitcool.com
Maybe I’m not in a critical enough frame of mind, but I think you guys are kind of missing the tone of the article.
I took it as a light hearted, possibly even slightly sarcastic use of visual indicators of each site to point out a more serious fact: Twitter’s success is reminiscent of Myspace. Both companies at startup had no clear target, no good business model, and were vastly underprepared for the quickness of adoption.
To me, this article asks if Twitter is in danger of its adoption rate outpacing the growth of the business structure, which in my mind is very probable. This says nothing about service itself, which is amazing: clean, useful and purpose driven.
good post. celebrity is a product of 1:n networks, it is a royalist relation, driven by the desire to rule and to submit. fame is a very unstable currency. the famous truth of today is tomorrows idiocy.