Facebook Wins Social Networking War

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Action for Freedom — Leave a comment

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

This afternoon Facebook and MySpace announced a “partnership” of sorts between the two social networking sites called “Mashup.” The new feature will allow Facebook users to import their content into their MySpace account. This is a giant leap toward oblivion for MySpace. When Facebook became available to all users in December, 2008, it marked the beginning of the end for MySpace. Today’s “partnership” marks the final chapter in MySpace’s history. It won’t be long now before MySpace disappears into a puff of smoke forever.

MySpace describes the move this way:

With a simple one-click set-up, the likes and interests of a user’s Facebook profile are ported over to Myspace, enabling a user’s stream to become immediately populated with the entertainment content they already love. Users also have the ability to program their own streams based on recommendations and trending topics bubbling up on Myspace, while also engaging with other fans that share the same interests and passions in music, celebrities, TV, and movies.

Whether you view this as a surrender or a desperate attempt to stay alive, one thing is certain – Facebook is officially the winner here. Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, says Mashup further differentiates the two websites.

This is a recognition of an old defeat. MySpace stopped being the place to find and connect to friends a long time ago. This is reinforcing its value as what it is, a publishing site. Facebook is not, and will not be, a publishing site. So this partnership helps define and distinguish the two, and makes it easier for users to be active members of both sites, using each on for what it does well.

Will there ever be another social networking site to rival Facebook? I don’t think so, at least in the immediate future. However, let’s not forget the fact that MySpace once appeared to be unstoppable. There are many things that Facebook has done to position itself to become what it is today, but one very important thing they did is the reason MySpace has slowly drifted toward irrelevance. Facebook has taken its application development and integration possibilities to a globally dominant level. If anyone has any hopes of competing with Facebook, they will have to come to the market ready with something innovative, unique, and downright fantastic to even have a snowball’s chance in Hell of finding success.