MySpace's Melting Makes Murdoch Mad

Barence writes "Facebook has overtaken rival social network MySpace for the first time — provoking an angry outburst from Rupert Murdoch, the man who paid $580m for MySpace only three years ago."

Post...

[mr_nazgul]

Maybe he should rant about it on his Facebook page.

Makes Murdoch Mad?

[FurtiveGlancer]

I thought he was already mad. Hmmm.

Duh

[Ilan Volow]

How could a UI disaster that informs a user who has problems logging in that "you must be logged in to do that?" and that lacks any kind of official published API possibly win?

Re:Facebook won't last

[ShieldW0lf]

The moral of the story is, if you're going to do the bait and switch thing on the internet, you better get your money back out faster than Mr Murdoch did.

Re:A shill for the State gets his just deserts

[gnick]

MySpace, though, is the anti-thesis of government. It's about freedom. People don't necessarily realize that, but that's the end result from allowing people to freely communicate, gather and entertain.

They can take our lives, but they'll never take our MySpace?

Alliterative Articles Are Awesome

[michaelpb]

All alliterations are actually anterior assonance, after all. The article wasn't nearly as entertaining as the title...

Re:Mad? Really?

[urbanriot]

Maybe Rupert Murdoch wrote conveyed his anger with Facebook's success in REALLY BIG LETTERS!!!111oneoneone

Re:hey murdoch

[griffjon]

We should start a social networking site that is tragically and intentionally UNhip, outdated, and technologically in the dark ages, and is rude, and full of google ads. It'd become an overnight antihero sensation.

minus the google ads

[circletimessquare]

its called craigslist

Idea

[legoman666]

So I was sitting in my cube on this fine Monday afternoon, eating my lunch, when I had a brilliant idea.

FlashFaceSpace. It will combine the wonderful-nonannoying-awesomeness that is Flash, the unobtrusiveness of Facebook applications, and the customizability of MySpace to create the ultimate social networking site of DEATH. This will blow MySpace, Facebook and every other social networking site out of the water.

Should have known better

[bsDaemon]

Murdoc's corporation, owns many dozens of news papers, magazines, TV and radio stations.

He just bought the Dow Jones Corporation, including the Wall Street Journal, for fsck's sake!

You would think that he has enough experience and market knowledge to know to to spend half a billion dollars on something targeted at 15 year olds who wear pants made for the opposite gender.

Kids change fads more often than they change their underwear some times. Eventually, some of those grow up, go to college, and want something a little more serious and less... dumb.

Then they abandon myspace.

Oh well. Better luck next time, dude!

Never let

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

facts get in the way of a good bit of sensationalism.

Re:Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

It will combine the wonderful-nonannoying-awesomeness that is Flash, the unobtrusiveness of Facebook applications, and the customizability of MySpace to create the ultimate social networking site of DEATH. This will blow MySpace, Facebook and every other social networking site out of the water.

Flash? Bah, try Silverlight - now there's a technology that's going places!

MyBookLight even sounds better too!

Re:A shill for the State gets his just deserts

[Bedemus]

MySpace, though, is the anti-thesis of government. It's about freedom. People don't necessarily realize that, but that's the end result from allowing people to freely communicate, gather and entertain.

You may want to find a new line of reasoning. I think that argument is more likely to turn someone against freedom than it is to win someone over to MySpace.

Re:Facebook won't last

[ProfessionalCookie]

Leave me alone.

Not feeling social?

Re:A shill for the State gets his just deserts

[Dachannien]

MySpace, though, is the anti-thesis of government. It's about freedom.

Indeed. It's about giving the technologically inept individual the power to suck total ass on the intarweb, because Geocities never made it easy enough back in the day.

Re:Facebook won't last

[CohibaVancouver]

and move on to something new

I recommend "friendster" :P

Re:Should have known better

[Captain Hook]

Kids change fads more often than they change their underwear some times.

Maybe, but not changing their underwear is itself just a fad, soon all the hip kids will be taking multiple pairs of underwear to school and changing between each class. You mark my words.

Re:Mad? Really?

[InlawBiker]

"Murdoch Mostly Mopes; Missing Money Makes Monday More Melancholy."

Slashdot submission sure sucks.

Re:Maybe it's because

[Anonymous Coward]

But every day I get another invite from a hot girl who really wants to be my friend. She even gives me a link to her website where she keeps all the pictures myspace won't let her post. I never got this kind of attention before myspace

Re:Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

...the customizability of MySpace...

I realized there truly is a real place called Hell the day I tried to customize a MySpace page. That is the second most painful experience in existence.

I'm not sure what the first most painful experience is, but as soon as I figure it out, I want to do it to whomever designed MySpace.

Re:Should have known better

[Anonymous Coward]

wait wait, why are boys wearing girls pants? is this a new trend? i've been waiting for that opportunity for years! I guess this brings getting in their pants to a new level?

Re:Idea

[Cygfrydd]

I felt a great disturbance in the Flash, as if millions of browsers suddenly cried out in terror and suddenly dumped core. I fear something terrible has happened.

--@yg

Test run

[game kid]

You have 1 new invitation (25% of 3.5 MB loaded) but you must be logged in to do that!

(note the completely ambiguous use of MB that might mean million-byte or 2^20 depending on whether Murdoch and his code-slaves are RAIDophiles or TCP/IP fanatics)

Re:Mad? Really?

[Sloppy]

Fox news isn't doing anything different from NBC, CBS and ABC.

Yes, but try to give those companies some names as clever as "Faux." Whenever I turn my parody-demon loose on "CBS" I draw a blank. (Yes, comedians, I'm issuing you a challenge.)

Re:Mad? Really?

[Archangel Michael]

Completely Blank Stare?

Re:Mad? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe he took some photos of himself pouting with a camera held at arms length and used some program to overlay them with sparkly letter lyrics from taking back sunday, describing how much of a self-sacrificing saint (in sepia) he is for a world that just doesn't care.

Of course he already does this somewhat with the WSJ...

Re:Mad? Really?

[monxrtr]

CBS. We put the BS in news. What you C, is BS. CBS. News for the BS college graduate.

Re:Facebook won't last

[cowscows]

Let's be fair, I only reworded a portion of the parent post. I was too lazy to rewrite the rest of it.

Re:aargh

[vistic]

Merge facebook and myspace? Yes! Everyone will want to come on MyFace!

Re:Mad? Really?

[billcopc]

Duh. The title: "Murdoch fumes as Facebook overtakes MySpace"

Yeah, Facebook gives me gas, too! *rimshot*

(that's right, mod me funny, you know you wanna)

Re:Mad? Really?

[Scrameustache]

constant "Obama/Osama" name slip-ups.

Can you blame them? The man executed a terrorist fist jab [youtube.com] on camera! No wonder they're confused.

Re:Mad? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Constant Bull-Shit