Facebook > myspace and Twitter

The article I read for this week’s blog posting was from CNN, titled “Can once-cool MySpace stage a comeback?”. The article was published back from June 2009, and talked about the beginning of the end for Myspace. It talked about its decline in popularity, and the rise of competition from Facebook, especially when Myspace was bought by News Corp. The article also mentions Myspace decided to focus its site more on the user’s music and entertainment. It also pointed out that Myspace users were usually younger, and advertisers weren’t interested.
When I first started using social networks I felt that MySpace was the best site. Users didn’t have to get verified, names could be changed, and users were able to customize their pages. I feel MySpace’s biggest weakness was the amount of spam that started to infiltrate comment pages. Facebook’s “tag”, and “like” features were the weapon that helped Facebook dominate the World Wide Web. The best deterrent Facebook used for spammers was requiring users to have a school email address. As of right now I can’t see Twitter beating out Facebook, because Twitter is a public away message. At the end of the article it basically stated that Twitter is the new network, and Facebook users will begin to convert to Twitter accounts. This article is 2 years old and I don’t see any chance of Facebook being taken down any time soon.
Throughout the article it mentions that users usually have a life span of 2 years on these social network sites. My Facebook account was made in 2006, and 5 years later I see more users, and advertising on this site than I ever would have expected. I made the account out of curiosity, and thought it was boring.
Even though 2 years is the average life span for users, the amount of pictures, friends, and events that users post is what keeps them glued on. They have too much time vested in Facebook, and any rival to them would need to find a new way to win users over.