- Image via CrunchBase
Remember MySpace? It used to be a big deal. Then Facebook happened, and MySpace has shuffled toward irrelevance ever since.
Today, MySpace took a big leap toward its fate. The company announced this afternoon that it has partnered with Facebook. The new feature, called Mashup, allows MySpace users to get their Facebook information into MySpace, pulling Facebook stream items into the MySpace wall — or whatever their respective companies call that thing.
MySpace puts it 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.
TechCrunch calls it a surrender. ComputerWorld dubs it a dethroning, but also has an expert, Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, who says Mashup further differentiates the two websites.
“This is a recognition of an old defeat,” Gottheil told ComputerWorld. “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.”
Do you still use MySpace? Does it still have a purpose, or has Facebook taken over the social networking world? Given the rate at which companies are clamoring to partner with Facebook, the Social Network seems unstoppable. Can another social networking site ever hope to compete? (I will remind you, before you answer, that MySpace looked unbeatable once too.)
Related articles
- Once-Mighty MySpace ‘Mashes Up’ With Facebook (huffingtonpost.com)
- MySpace CEO tries to explain why he isn’t surrendering to Facebook (venturebeat.com)
- You Can Now Log in to MySpace with Facebook (mashable.com)
- MySpace announces “Mashup with Facebook” (sfgate.com)
