Fox Doesn't Take MySpace Seriously
Posted by Robert on the 7th of June, 2006 at 11:08 AM GMT0. Permalink.Tags: Geek, Myspace
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When I posted this, I was listening to: Tool - Vicarious
In July of 2005, MySpace, one of the most popular social networks, was bought by Fox Broadcasting. While I'm not sure why Fox wanted to stick it's fingers in the Web 2.0
pie, I can only guess that it is because MySpace brings in gobs and gobs of ad revenue. This sort of acquisition is nothing new. Normally, however, the parent company either takes it's new property seriously by advancing it (buyout for profit) or dissolves the new property (buyout to remove competition). Sometimes, a little bit of both happens (e.g. Adobe's purchase of Macromedia). Fox Broadcasting has done neither. Fox does not take MySpace seriously.
It is a bold claim to say that the parent company of one of the most popular websites in the US doesn't care about it's users. Fox, I'm certain, has very deep pockets. They could easily take MySpace to a new level, but they don't. MySpace isn't getting any better. The key to all of this is, of course, commitment to technical support. MySpace has no real technical support, even though Fox could afford it. Fox leaves its users high and dry.
Previously, the site seemed to be administered by a small handful of people. There were certain things they could not do alone with a large user base. Having recently dealt with their support system
for two separate issues (both of which were about completely different things and got the EXACT same response), I'll explain how it seems to work.
User A wants to send a message to support. User A eventually finds the link, and uses the drill down to determine where the problem lies. User A submits, sees the few FAQs for those options which don't address her problem. User A continues to send a message. After the message is submitted, a script parses the text of the message for keywords and tries to make a best-guess at what the user wants. Once the script has done this, it sends the information to User A. In this example, User A's question wasn't answered. So, User A clicks the link at the bottom of the e-mail and resubmits the question. A few days later, the system sends an e-mail with a canned response that says something like, We are working on fixing that,
(even if there was nothing to be fixed) with no sign that anything was ever resolved.
My requests both had the keyword Privacy
in them. Even though one was asking about how to keep search engine spiders off of my blog and the other was asking how to remove a blog from my reading list under a very particular circumstance, I got the same canned response about how to set my profile to private. For two separate requests, I followed the same path as User A. Coming to the same indeterminate end in two separate instances is unacceptable for a company the size of Fox. This shows their lack of commitment to MySpace in a fundamental area. If Fox took MySpace seriously, this wouldn't be an issue.
But, with a support system like that, I'm sure complaints get shipped to /dev/null directly...
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You Assume Too Much
by jes5199 on the 7th of June, 2006 at 9:19 PM GMT0. Permalink.you assume too much. none of us know why people use myspace. myspace as a _web_application_ is slow and buggy and poorly supported. it's always been that way. and yet, the user base grows and grows. i think fox's lack of involvement is simple: if it ain't broke... and to fox, broke means no longer doubling in size every three months. when myspace plateaus, expect them to start throwing developers on fixing whatever they imagine has slowed down signups and impressions. but not until then.
oh, and myspace? what's that? i've never heard of it. (that's my story and i'm sticking to it)
Nit Pick
by Jeremy on the 8th of June, 2006 at 11:44 PM GMT0. Permalink. Fox doesn't own MySpace, NewsCorp (the company that owns Fox) does. They're more siblings than parent-child. None of the definitions I've heard for Web 2.0 would allow MySpace to be included. Sure, it's a social site, but it doesn't involve collaboration, tagging, prettiness, simple/slick design... nothing. I'm sure that the people Robert Murdoch claimed he hired to work on MySpace are still trying to sift through the steaming pile of shit that makes up it's source code. You kinda have to feel bad for them. You'd have to pay me a lot to work on that site (unless it was a build-from-scratch).Web 2.0
by Robert on the 9th of June, 2006 at 12:04 AM GMT0. Permalink.I put quotes around Web 2.0 for a reason. That reason is that I don't think it deserves the Web 2.0 moniker, but still gets grouped into the same movement.
Check out slide 7 through 9 on Andy Budd's talk from d.construct that define the qualities that make a Web 2.0 site. I reference it because I think he's spot-on. Myspace does have a few of his qualities. There is an MP3 of his talk on the net if you'd rather listen. It's a good listen.
Oh Yeah
by Jeremy on the 8th of June, 2006 at 11:47 PM GMT0. Permalink.Oh yeah... and what jes5199 said.
Also, who the hell is this?
Untitled
by jes5199 on the 9th of June, 2006 at 2:03 AM GMT0. Permalink.fucking identity thiefs!