Fun With Social Networking Vol. II: MySpace
Posted on June 9th, 2008 by Adam Brucker
MySpace has always been intriguing to me, but the combination of their seizure inducing page layouts and the potential stigma of being a 30 something guy on what started as a network for teenagers to connect with each other has held me back from joining.
Well, now that every band in the free world uses the platform to keep in touch with their fans, I’ve decided to give it a go.
So far, so great.
What I like:
- Dynamic updates from the bands I like, in real time, once I’ve become “friends” with them.
- Access to everything in one place - news, tour dates, new tunes, etc…
- The personalized calendar to keep track of upcoming shows - and the ability to search for shows in my area.
- The ability to find new bands to check out by looking at the friends of my friends.
What I don’t like:
- Slow. Terrible user interface. Slow. Stuff seems to be broken all the time. Slow.
- The CAPTCHA’s that they make you solve when sending a friend invite are sometimes IMPOSSIBLE to solve. Combine this with their very slow interface and it gets old really quick when you can’t get two or three of them in a row.
It’s also an interesting lesson about the relative importance of a good UI. If the content is good enough and there are enough compelling reasons to use the site, it just doesn’t matter as much.
In a band? Let’s be friends…
