Too Much of a Good Thing?
As is always the case, when someone succeeds at something, someone tries to copy it and ‘cash’ in on the hype or interest. I don’t think that has been more evident than with Social Networking.
It has been around for quite a while, with very few people not having heard of Myspace. Myspace was classed by many (fair to say younger crew?) to be “the” site to have. If you didn’t have one, it was almost like you were some sort of strange crazy person. But if you were honest, I think that most would agree that Myspace is just plain ugly, and not really that user friendly in many aspects. But it was there, it was the biggest and so everyone used it.
Then along came Facebook. A slow start over in America amongst the colleges that quickly picked up momentum that soon turned its eyes towards everyone else, and so it was opened to anyone who wanted to join. Now it is almost like everyone is on Facebook (I dread the day my folks join), but it doesn’t carry the stigma that Myspace did for many. It’s easy to use, a lot easier to network and find other people and a much cleaner look. On the face of it, dare I say, better than Myspace.
But it begs the question, is this all just another fad? I am sure that given time, another site will come along and seem bigger and better again, leaving Facebook chewing on its last pages as everyone catches the bug and heads on over to the new cool.
Do we really need another Facebook or Myspace though?
Under the ‘big two’ there seem to be countless smaller SN sites, all doing pretty much the same thing, with a slight difference.
Bebo, Friendster, and Ringo are all trying to get you to invite your friends, chat, share photos and tell others all about yourself.
You can do everything you can do on pretty much every other SN site, bar the few ‘special’ things that seem to separate them all from the rest.
I guess it just seems that we are continually flooded with requests to join some other group when you are already on 3 or 7 others that doing the exact same thing.
It seems hard to imagine at the moment, someone coming along and creating something that can take over what Facebook has done, but I am sure someone is going to try and eventually will.
So in the mean time, please excuse me, I need to add some people to my Hi5 account.
