Talking Social: Who is MySpace asks the target audience

I never really used much of the original MySpace, while I did have an account the most popular social network in my friends circle was Bebo. Pretty much everyone in Australia had a Bebo account instead of MySpace or Facebook. Which at the time Facebook was only just emerging and I felt even then it was the better option out of all three. Personally I think the more the social network limits user manipulation of the UI the better it is. Man there was some god awful MySpace pages. I like the idea in principle, but from a designing standpoint it isn’t very professional for one to have it go as over the top as MySpace did back then.

But on the same time it seems we have moved back to this customization which MySpace offered. But at least the general structure is more consistent over the rest of the social networking site. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, Bebo if it is still around, they all do it. Even Youtube. The emphasis on design and personality is slowly integrating its way into the social media world.

I’ve talked about social networking in the past. From my general outlook that all social network sites have become essentially the same site and they need to evolve to praising the evolution of the internet but not MySpace. Finally of course the big article itself on MySpace and how I felt it should have been propelled in its final years.

You see previously went it was bought out, pretty much everyone thought it was going to be scrapped for parts. Well while there isn’t many parts it has, you know what I mean though, no one thought at least if it did come back the push wouldn’t be as interesting as what has appeared recently.

This week the new MySpace has been revealed, in a short video presentation which overlooks the various social aspects of MySpace.

A few people comment that the MySpace brand is essentially trashed. In my mind I don’t think so. MySpace might have been trash years ago when Facebook was emerging into the field, but the brand has had enough cool down time for it to possibly seem edgy to the younger audience who didn’t even get the chance to figure out what MySpace was yet. This is what I think they should be aiming for as a primary or secondary target audience. Mainly because by drawing in the teenagers, there will be enough push from them to bring up the numbers, and primary what kids use end up been used by their parents, who in return end up getting it used by the grandparents. Marketing needs to be edgy enough to attack teenagers, but not to extreme as to damage the image of it to older people. Casuals don’t know what MySpace is either. Facebook for them is the only thing which has existed, because it’s the only thing which has had enough penetration to grasp even Nan and Pop.

Which means the brand isn’t damaged. It can have the chance to grown. From looking at it in this angle, MySpace is the easiest rebrand and reboot possible. Damage control only needs to be done to the internet savey who were around for the MySpace era, and I think the product should sway them more. As well as if Grandma wants to start sharing music she’s listing to and pictures on MySpace instead of Facebook that would really put a spanner in the works.

What I like about this reboot is it seems to be drastically different from Facebook, when it introduces new features and ways to present the information. While at the same time been as simular as possible. Google Plus and even Diaspora and the issues which for the most part they were identical to each other and for the most part they were also trying to get in front of Facebook by using the same tricks Facebook has. The only thing drastically different was the sharing groups for contacts they had, which seems to have been copied over in some fashion to Facebook. Because there wasn’t much else to appeal to the consumer which is new, the services fizzled as Facebook only grew stronger. What’s that the most advertised fancy new feature is now in Facebook? Why would we want to even switch to Google Plus?

I think if this new MySpace can start pulling in the numbers, and it appears they want to continue to slightly align their services with music and other creative aspects like they used to. Then if this takes off to any degree, then Facebook has a competitor at last in the same social network field as it. Which once that happens, then maybe we will start seeing change, on both sides of the coin and even newcomers.