Think you know how MySpace got started? Think again. | Hacker News Reader

Think you know how MySpace got started? Think again.

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9 pointsawt8 comments

Um, I published this exact story at Valleywag last year; they just rewrote a bit of the intro (like, changed "I" to "he") and linked to the original article. I don't think that's even legal under the CC license. Here's the original: http://valleywag.com/tech/myspace/what-news-corp-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-myspace-condensed-edition-199668.php#more

Thanks for the update. I wish I had noticed it was linkjacked.

Anyone want to fix the link jack?

1. I followed my friend's band to Myspace, didn't create an account. Then eventually created an account to add some friends I found. It was never mass-marketed to me.

2. MySpace is not spam. There is a concentrated level of marketing, and it is sometimes obnoxious, but you could say that about Times Square. Marketing itself is not evil. Some people love watching movie previews. Myspace does not hamper my ability to use email, nor do spammers on myspace interfere with my ability to use it. I don't mind getting friend requests and event requests from Bands, and honestly I don't even mind the "Click for Nude WebCam" spam. If MySpace spam bothers you that much, it's easy enough to simply shut down your account, create a new one, or change your email address. But again, the product as a whole isn't spam at all.

3. I really don't care whether Tom created MySpace or not. I think it's an effective way to handle customer service.

4. Chris DeWolfe sounds like he might be a Bad Man, but how does that relate to the product?

5. What is bad about MySpace being a direct assult on Friendster?

While I appreciate the information, and am glad to see someone sharing it, the tone of the article is very sensational.

This is why I hope that all of facebook's new apps fail. They have a large enough userbase already to crush anything new.

It's hard to want Facebook to fail, since the creators are so great, the brand is classy, and the whole thing just WORKS. (If MySpace did this sort of thing, THAT I could hate.) Zuckerberg seems to actually care about making good stuff happen; if it all has to fall under Facebook, well, I welcome our new alien overlords.

You do realize that this would be the death of so many startups, right? They're already demonstrating that they would rather lift ideas from other companies than buy anyone.

I don't care for the founders much at all. They obviously got very lucky in choosing their product. Their technology is as boring as they come (PHP et al.)

More that I don't like about facebook, the product:

They "sell" privacy. So much of their marketing revolves around the idea that what you do on facebook will only be known among those you want it to. And yet here, facebook fails miserably. It lets in exactly the worst people: law enforcement, employers, school officials.

Oh and the content of their photo galleries is trash because the design encourages people to upload every single picture on their harddrive. Early, early myspace even had them beat in this area.

I don't know, I just never liked it or them much at all.

I'm not sure that it's possible to have a userbase so big, or a product so compelling, that you can crush anything. People were probably saying the same thing about Yahoo in 1999.

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