MySpace's Melting Makes Murdoch Mad 346
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."
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MySpace's Melting Makes Murdoch Mad
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Whoever dies with the most toys wins.
Mad? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read the linked article a few times and I'm not sure where there is anything to indicate he is mad. Nice use of alliteration though. I did find this article about the difference in growth [zdnet.com.au] between the two sites and it has a lot more information about the situation in general, though nothing about Murdoch's reaction. I couldn't find anything more about that - like where and when he said the things they say he said, what the tone was, etc.
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually only have a myspace account, but from the very limited experience I had clicking around on FaceBook, I already know it is a much cleaner platform.
Maybe if Murdoch put some damn effort into fixing Tom's millions of bugs he'd get people to give a crap.
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
"Murdoch Mostly Mopes; Missing Money Makes Monday More Melancholy."
Slashdot submission sure sucks.
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
=)
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
(that's right, mod me funny, you know you wanna)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
Worthy of every humor mod point allowable.
Besides, any puke who uses their "Socal Web clicking" site to politically drive a candidate amongst the masses of highschool and college age kids as the next JFK really is a tool.
The highschool click part of Facebook strikes me as very Anti-Social. Don't get me wrong, MySpace is littered with people doing the same approach and hanging with people they often do in their real lives.
Social Networking strikes me more useful for businesses than consumers.
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, that's because Rupert is the Evil (tm) owner of Fox News (Faux for lefties), so anything that makes him look More Evil (TM)(C) is okay.
Duh!
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
We call it "Faux" news because it is. Learn this: Fox went to court and defended its right to knowingly broadcast untruth as news because the law does not specifically say they can't. Again, in case you still don't get it: Fox defended its right to broadcast lies that they knew were lies.
And that, among other reasons*, is why it is "faux".
http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf [2dca.org]
http://www.foxbghsuit.com/ [foxbghsuit.com]
* blending opinion with news and calling it objective
putting only one political view on the air and calling themselves "balanced"
reporting as factual news (and almost verbatim) the "talking points" released by the GOP
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't revel in being a defender of big media, but those who pan Fox News never seem to understand what they're criticizing. Fox's primetime lineup consists of personality-driven opinion shows. They've got a right-leaning megalomaniac, a debate show, and a liberal who have control over the content and accuracy of their respective shows. It was a novel thing on a 24/7 news channel when Murdoch started it, and I think it has a place in the discourse. If and when that discourse lacks value, the host is to bla
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And during the day, their shows always have two opposing viewpoints. And neither are doormats, most of the time--Susan Estridge or other Democratic strategists are common left-wing guests, and half the time the Republican guests are complete no-names.
The channel sucks--come on, I don't need 24/7 Disaster Coverage From The Leading Name In News--but not because they're "unbalanced." At least no moreso than, say, MSNBC (hi, Keith Olbermann!).
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that there's consistent support from the hosts on one side of the debate, thus making it invariably two on one.
And that's ignoring that their NEWS shows also show rampant bias, poor to nonexistant fact-checking, and deliberate propaganda reporting, as well as just plain dirty tricks (Such as their constant "Obama/Osama" name slip-ups. I'm not saying that they can't have pundits, I'm saying that their regular newscasters, who are positioned as NEWSCASTERS, are engaging in propaganda and punditry while claiming to be delivering factual and unbiased coverage.
As for Keith Olberman... even while delivering an opinion column, the man has an infinitely better record on vetting his sources and producing factual, correct news than Fox News ever has. That's a bad sign, that is.
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Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
``Republican'' is synonymous with ``American'' now? Who are you, Joe McCarthy?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
- Steve Rendall Senior Analyst FAIR [fair.org]
This discussion just reminded me about the bias study that fair has conducted a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And during the day, their shows always have two opposing viewpoints
The regular networks have 2:1 biases in favor of conservative commentators, much less on Fox News. And as someone else pointed out, the hosts are invariably spouting the GOP talking points.
left-wing guests
Democrat != left wing.
And neither are doormats
There are three types of Democrats on Fox: doormats who get humiliated, those who get shouted over, and DINO's like Joe Lieberman.
At least no moreso than, say, MSNBC (hi, Keith Olbermann!).
Fals
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not true, while I'm not an expert on news, I did spend some time in college studying it.
As any journalist knows having two extremists from both sides does not constitute balance. It just means that you've got extremists from both sides. No reputable news organization would employ the individuals that Fox news does. The appearance of bias, even if it isn't real, is something which damages the credibility of a network.
Fox got in trouble because they weren't giving equal air to the other side of issues while at the same time professing to be the most fair and balanced news network on TV. Anybody who's seen the programming knows that's not the case. If it were the case there'd be a more diverse group objecting to it. Rather than just one side of the political spectrum.
Just look at the Dan Rather incident, he wasn't even responsible for that content, and he got shit canned for it. Rather's job on the show was to read the news, whatever was given to him and do the show, shows like that never have the anchor do much beyond that and a few interviews.
As far as myspace goes, it was obvious at the time that he over payed for the site. IIRC at the time myspace was hugely popular, but was somewhat lacking in profitability. For it to have been a decent deal, it would have had to have been making at least 40m a year with a strong brand. And as it turned out the brand just wasn't that strong. I'm sure it can still earn a decent profit, but it was a poor investment in the first place.
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Just look at the Dan Rather incident, he wasn't even responsible for that content, and he got shit canned for it
He wasn't responsible? So he is nothing more than a news reader? That and after it was exposed, he continued to shill the party line given in the original piece, which means he believed the piece in the first place.
Or he wanted to believe the piece, so that he didn't bother getting second sources or anything of the sort. Followed by CBS hounding an old lady to get her to say she did write the letter, even when it became clear it was a forgery.
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for Rather. He should have been sh
Dan Rather (Score:5, Informative)
"Just look at the Dan Rather incident, he wasn't even responsible for that content, and he got shit canned for it. Rather's job on the show was to read the news, whatever was given to him and do the show, shows like that never have the anchor do much beyond that and a few interviews."
That's a crock, sir. Dan Rather was not an innocent bystander in the reporting of that story. He wasn't a stiff mannequin that simply read what the teleprompter told him to say. He was deeply involved in the preparation of that story, and got fired because he refused to refute it, even when evidence proved the documents were faked with a word processor. And to this day, he still defends the writers and fact checkers of that story, all evidence that they screwed up to the contrary.
Re:Dan Rather (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because even though the copies he had were forged, all the information in them was accurate.
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this have to do with it. They went to court and Newscorp lawyers argued that their program "which they call news" had the right to broadcast information they knew was false and the right to fire journalists with enough integrity to refuse. Whatever else that makes them, it is completely untrustworthy as a source for facts.
Who picks the hosts? Who fires the people who refuse to tell lies. Sorry, you can't shift the blame away from a corporation that is not trying to inform, but persuade. They just aren't news.
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fox news isn't doing anything different from NBC, CBS and ABC. Most notably, exploding trucks, and fake documents. And these are the cases where they got caught.
I'd rather get my news and opinions from people who are knowingly biased, than from people who try to say that they are reporting the news unbiasedly. At least I know the slant, and it makes it easier to dismiss the BS.
The point is, take the news you get with a grain of salt, no matter what your source is. Additionally, get your news from a variety of Points of View, as the truth usually lies (pun intended) in between.
The only idiots I know, get all their news from single sources. They don't listen to alternative views because they can't actually use their heads to filter the news. This goes to both lefties and righties.
I also suggest that if you're railing against "Faux News", that you also rail against the others that end up doing the same thing, manufacturing "news" and "facts".
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
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.)
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Completely Blank Stare?
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
CBS. We put the BS in news. What you C, is BS. CBS. News for the BS college graduate.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Fox news isn't doing anything different from NBC, CBS and ABC."
Exploding trucks and Rather's "fake documents" just somehow don't match up against 8 years of continuoys Fox propaganda leading the way in suckering the U.S. in to Iraq, and doing everything in their power to elect one of the worst Presidents in our history...twice. If you want I'll make a list of all the bone headed things Bush and Cheney have done, with the help of Fox and Rupert Murdoch, which have nearly destroyed the U.S. and may well suc
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Never let (Score:3, Funny)
facts get in the way of a good bit of sensationalism.
Interesting bit of irony, that (Score:5, Insightful)
Having that statement applied TO Rupert Murdoch, rather than BY Rupert Murdoch.
Re:Mad? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking of alliteration, I think one reason why MySpace is doomed to play second fiddle is because it's simply harder to say to someone that you put your pictures "on my MySpace page" than "on my Facebook page."
Or maybe I'm just being silly, who knows.
Post... (Score:5, Funny)
Facebook won't last (Score:5, Interesting)
Now facebook is even spammier than myspace, with hundreds of applications I can't stand, and all their invites. I have to "add" an application in order to view it. I don't want to view it. I don't want a "drink" invitation, or a "pirate" invitation. Leave me alone.
This is why I quit Facebook [fredrickville.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh god. HOW?! I've been looking, but I can't find anything to do that.
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Insightful)
All of these sorts of things tend to collapse under their own weight. When they start out, they're being created by people who are passionate about it and doing it because they care/enjoy working on it. Then it grows and more people sign up and suddenly there's a potential for some money to be made exploiting it. And that's what happens. The advertisers and spammers move in in full force, deals are made in order to afford all the new servers needed to keep up with traffic, and more and more people keep joining just because their friends told them they should.
The ratio of signal to noise gets skewed to the point where it becomes hard to use, and that combined with the general fickleness of people (especially the younger people that make up a significant portion of the userbase), means that the eyeballs go elsewhere. And at the end of the day, nothing that myspace or facebook or any social networking site does is really all that complicated. There are plenty of other websites out there that are offering ways to communicate with other people.
I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but the churn and turn over seems to be pretty consistent. Before facebook everyone talked about myspace. Before myspace everyone talked about orkut. Before orkut everyone talked about livejournal, etc... All those sites still exist, but today facebook is the one that people are writing headlines about. A couple years down the line some new upstart will be getting all the attention. It's just the way it is, and investing in one of these sites like it's going to be the next amazon or google is pretty silly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"The advertisers and spammers move in in full force, deals are made in order to afford all the new servers needed to keep up with traffic"
In my experience, once the profiteering mentality starts, website costs have absolutely nothing to do with increased advertising and commercialisation.
Unless you're running a site like youtube or a warez site etc., server & bandwidth costs are never that significant and a simple unobtrusive banner ad or 'donate' button pays for it. It's people trying to convince inves
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Insightful)
You just summed up almost all businesses in general, not just social networking ones.....
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:4, Insightful)
Sites collapse under their own weight when people get greedy. If the advertising remains reasonable the provider can make money and have some longevity.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just the way it is, and investing in one of these sites like it's going to be the next amazon or google is pretty silly.
The only argument that I have about that is achieving 'critical mass'. Myspace is successful due to it's large userbase. Same thing with Facebook. Retail sites, like Amazon, only need to drive buyers to the site to be successful. A social networking site really has to have everybody on it to be successful. If your friends aren't on Myspace, you probably won't use it. The more entrenched social groups are in one site, the more difficult it is to build a competitor and be successful.
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't get how they're worth putting up with the "junk" when every feature they provide can be gotten elsewhere for free without the cruft. Sure, I understand that everything is integrated on those sites, but it's my opinion that level of tight integration is over-hyped.
I gave MySpace a try, mainly because I wanted to checkout the chatroom so I created an account. It seemed like it was nothing more than a beauty contest with everyone try
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither of them will disappear entirely. One isn't going to crush the other. What's going to happen is that the masses will get tired of both of them, and move on to something new. There will still be some plenty of diehards who refuse to switch, and most of their current users will still keep and check on their accounts every once-in-a-while. But the bulk of the daily traffic will move to some newer, lightweight site that has a couple of novel ideas/features. And that site will be the big thing until it gets too bloated and tired, and then the cycle will repeat itself again.
Re:Facebook won't last (Score:5, Funny)
I recommend "friendster" :P
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Let's be fair, I only reworded a portion of the parent post. I was too lazy to rewrite the rest of it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My beef is with choices made by profile owners. So often, I see things like Blue font on Blue, so it's impossible to read without highlighting the text to momentarily change
Maybe it's because (Score:5, Insightful)
People are tired of being linked to a page that has crappy layout, crappy embedded video or music that plays automatically, is full of lolspeak and/or textype, and is so random that it makes a schizophrenic feel confused.
oh wait.......
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe it's because (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe it's because (Score:4, Funny)
Boohoo (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh the joys of investing in a fad. I find it hard to feel for Murdoch. The years when such ventures were risk-free no-brainers are ca. 10 years past (if they ever existed).
A shill for the State gets his just deserts (Score:2, Interesting)
Rupert Murdoch has made his millions by becoming a shill for the State. That's a given. He promotes big, lovely government, and he was paid well by the Powers that Be.
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.
Murdoch overpaid for something that can probably never make a reasonable profit. It's like trying to commercialize peer groups. It doesn't
Re:A shill for the State gets his just deserts (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
It's like trying to commercialize peer groups.
It IS trying to commercialize peer groups.
Fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He promotes big, lovely government, and he was paid well by the Powers that Be.
You have proof of this? Somebody actually paid him for his investments, or he just got stinking rich off of them?
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 really think people stopped using MySpace because of their corporate ties. I'm sure some did, but most probably just hated their clunky Web 1.0 design. An easier explanation is something else moved into the market and took over. Somehow, someway, Facebook has a better product. MySpace nee
Re:A shill for the State gets his just deserts (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:A shill for the State gets his just deserts (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Rupert Murdoch has made his millions by becoming a shill for the State. That's a given. He promotes big, lovely government, and he was paid well by the Powers that Be."
I can't stand Murdoch one bit, but that is just complete & utter rubbish. Who are these "Powers that Be"? the Bavarian Illuminati?
In reality, he's "paid well" by all the suckers like you & me who pay for over-priced Fox, Foxtel, Sky and the plethora of other cable/satellite TV companies he part-owns.
aargh (Score:5, Informative)
No more pirate/vampire/werewolf invitations, please...
Facebook started off a great site, fast, clean design, it's now incredibly slow and hard todo anything, whereas myspace actually is improving.
Still waiting for a mybook, or facespace to integrate the messaging.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:aargh (Score:5, Funny)
Merge facebook and myspace? Yes! Everyone will want to come on MyFace!
Flash, meet Mr. Pan (Score:2)
Makes Murdoch Mad? (Score:5, Funny)
Duh (Score:5, Funny)
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: (Score:3, Informative)
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?
hey murdoch (Score:5, Insightful)
friendster
xanga
geocities
tripod
etc.
and don't worry about facebook, in a few short years, it too will be a hasbeen, replaced by whatever site is the new trend
social networking sites are nothing but trends. they have the limelight for a few years, then they fade. think of them as the bell bottoms and ankle warmers and member's only jackets of the web. here today, master of everything, gone tomorrow, utterly forgotten
so how do you make money off of them?
you make money off of social networking sites by becoming extremely powerful, then seducing some tragically unhip media conglomerate to buy you for gabazillions, then you sleep all day and party all night
so congratulations murdoch, you have a place in "new media" after all: the patsy left holding the bag
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
its called craigslist
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds oddly like /., except without the Google ads. Seriously, we can "friend" and "foe" each other, we can write journals, we're rude, unhip, quite outdated. Though we might miss the technologically outdated bit in topic, but /. is hitting web 2.0 when 2.0 is now something like 2.1337, so we might count on that regard. /. is the Mybookfacespace of the FUTURE!
Either that or we can all get Angelfire/Geocities pages again.
Re:hey murdoch (Score:5, Insightful)
You speak truth, but the hard reality here is the 500 million plus that Murdoch paid for MySpace was an absolute steal.
If Facebook is valued at $15 billion, it's very safe to assume that MySpace is worth at least half that. Odds are it's closer to twice that but, even with this hyper-unrealistically conservative measure, it's clear that Murdoch made a good investment.
it was worth the money (Score:5, Interesting)
the error is in how murdoch quantified what he was purchasing, the perception of what he was actually getting for his money: the error is in thinking you are buying a permanent piece of major real estate on the web. no, what you are buying is a major marketing and branding tool for a few years... which is indeed still worth $500 million
for his $500 million, he gets a few years of ad revenue, some "showing soon" movie marketing hype, some cross-branding possibilities, steering a few kids towards a fox reality show, etc. but after a few years run, the site is worth bupkus
as for facebook's $15 billion, all i can do is laugh. $15 billion?! insane. because facebook too will be worth the gum on my sneaker in a few years. facebook is worth what myspace is worth: $500 million
zuckerman or zuckerberg or whatever the kids name: he should have sold facebook out. hes going to be like that friendster guy is today in a few years: the friendster guy daily kicks himself in the ass for not selling out when he could have. zuckerdude is thinking he has the next google on his hands. no, he has the next xanga. sell out kid, asap
thats how you really make money on social networking sites: you sell out to established media conglomerates, and then go play frisbee. to keep a hold of the site, and thinking you are going to become a permanent internet portal, like google, is hubris, arrogance, egotism. unless you are planning to seque into becoming a search engine, and somehow actually take out google... heh, googd luck. but that's the only sound strategy to take if you plan on keeping the social networking site rather than selling out, upping the ante and going for the diamond ring
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
google is here until (Score:3, Insightful)
someone figures out how to search better than them. that's what brought google here: they did search better than the juggernauts of 1999: yahoo, altavista, etc.
if google is smart, they will remain focused on their core competency, and not get distracted with secondary pursuits, and have their entire relevancy stolen from them from under their feet. but the thing is, google is human endeavour. all human endeavours make mistake and fade
it may indeed take a decade or two, but there will come a time when google
Who would've thought (Score:5, Insightful)
That investing extremely large sums of money based on the momentary whims of teenagers and early twenty-somethings wasn't such a great idea? The winds of the internet can shift in an instant, and it seems like Murdoch hasn't caught on to that yet. Of course, it won't be long before The Next Big Thing comes along, and Facebook will be in the same spot that MySpace is right now.
Alliterative Articles Are Awesome (Score:2, Funny)
MySpace Can't Handle Demand (Score:2, Insightful)
MySpace is already slow with the existing demand. If they manage to gain more visitors, the situation will only get worse. Add some servers and cleanup the horrible HTML.
Make Rupert more mad (Score:2, Troll)
Facebook and Myspace are both cr@p (as all the other imitator sites are also cr@p). Did my statement of fact make you more happy Rupert, or are you just sore on loosing all that money?
Idea (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
--@yg
Test run (Score:4, Funny)
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)
cold fusion FTL (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact that the site was developed using Cold Fusion should have signaled the first sign of its impending demise.
Should have known better (Score:4, Funny)
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!
Re:Should have known better (Score:4, Funny)
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?
white and nerdy (Score:2)
Hey, FaceBook isn't mentioned in this song, so it can't be cool enough to survive :-)
(And as a FaceBook user ... as soon as something as slick comes along that actively ... I'll jump ship.)
manages the flood of craptastic add-ins
just maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
If myspace pages didn't suck so bad, there wouldn't be a problem. I don't even consider Facebook and MySpace rivals. Facebook is so far beyond MySpace, it isn't even worth discussing.
Facebook's days are numbered, I'm sure. Something will come along to replace it in the next couple of years...unless it is able to evolve.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Should have spent more money on tech? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know how bad Facebook is, but think of every story, every complaint you've ever had about Myspace, technology-wise.
It's worse than that.
Simple example: Trying to pull tour dates from Myspace. Too much to expect that they'd have a working iCal feed, or that they'd put hCal on the page. Fine, we'll scrape the HTML, no problem...
No, the real WTF moment was the month (I think, might've been more) during which none of the calendars worked.
People joke about Twitter being unable to scale, but really, you'd think with the amount of money Myspace pulls in, they'd be able to hire one good tech person? I'm guessing that's a major reason people are going to Facebook.
A feature, not a bug (Score:4, Informative)
The lack of proper calendar formats on MySpace is a deliberate feature, much like the way that notification emails from MySpace omit the actual details (i.e., the message someone sent you, whose birthday you're being reminded of), to oblige you to log in, click through an interstitial ad and view some more ads.
If MySpace allowed you to see your data through any means other than their ugly ad-plastered web pages, they'd lose ad impressions.
Huh!? He Made his money back! (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of the comments I'm seeing assume that Murdoch somehow lost money on the deal. In reality after he bought MySpace: "On August 8, 2006, search engine Google signed a $900 million deal to provide a Google search facility and advertising on MySpace."
And I'm sure that's not the only way MySpace has made Murdoch even richer.
MySpace is horribly buggy. FaceBook Isn't (Score:5, Interesting)
I've had no end of trouble with MySpace. I'm not able to prevent my music from playing when you load my page, even though that's how I set it in my profile. I've always allowed downloads of my MP3s, but at some point they stopped being downloadable. I had to delete them all and re-upload them to get the downloads back.
I have actually found MySpace pages that had been customized in such a way as to make FireFox crash just by loading the page!
My only complaint about FaceBook is that it doesn't allow for downloading MP3s - but that's a lack of a desired feature, and not an actual bug.
Most young people these days are trying out both. I don't think it takes much time for them all to figure out which one is better.
Unique as in uid=905905 (Score:3, Informative)
They likely mean "corresponding to a real person" by unique visitor, not being unique to the period. If we assume 200 million unique visitors in a year, 120 million of those people could be visiting every month, thus 120 million unique visitors a month. The other 80 million visitors from that year are the sensible ones.
Multiple browsers can skew the figure. If a myspace user has a work computer, a home computer, and an iPhone, he will appear as 3 unique visitors unless he is logged in.