Om Malik: R.I.P. MySpace

| Feb 11, 2010 | 2 comments

Om Malik, writing at Gigaom, has declared MySpace to be dead.

As Mr. Malik wrote:

“E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This social site is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to ‘is URL ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITE!!”

No, wait,  that’s the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch.  I guess I just got confused for a moment.  What Malik really said was “The audience has started to fritter away, moving to better, more current social environments such as Facebook and Twitter. As for the social graph, I wonder if MySpace really had one. I wouldn’t be surprised if more executives, including those from recently acquired startups such as imeem and iLike, left for greener and more viable pastures.”

Frankly, either quote works.  I always considered myself a bit old for MySpace but I was certainly aware of it during its heyday.  I recall musicians posting their songs on it, and also using inappropriate postings as a reason not to hire candidates I did not want to hire anyway.  Then at some point everything shifted to Facebook, and then Twitter.  I was just happy not to have to look at the eye-bleedingly awful MySpace pages any more.   The question is then begged: did NewsCorp kill MySpace, did time and less obnoxious platforms just pass it by, or some combination of the two?

Either way, a bit of a stiff lesson for Murdoch.  Wonder if he’ll learn it?

Filed Under: Old Media • Social Media • Trends

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John J. Guinness is a pseudonym for a dude playin' a dude, disguised as another dude. Actually, the name is a tribute to the real author's love of a certain beer from Ireland and devotion to a certain science fiction franchise featuring a certain classically trained actor. In reality he is just another corporate wage slave with a law degree and the dubious distinction of having served in the Canadian Army for approximately a decade. A lifelong fan of technology and gadgets, and an an admitted devotee of really bad cinema, he plans to use this site as a platform to pontificate on computers, photography, current events, pop culture and the pratfalls of being a new father. In his copious free time, he also comments on Gizmodo and other web sites as "Canoehead".
  • http://intensedebate.com/people/ZenInsight ZenInsight

    Loved this article.

  • http://twitter.com/emilydstine @emilydstine

    MySpace suicide, how fitting for a website frequented by pretty much emo or wannabe emo kid out there. You know I think killed MySpace? A lack of legitimacy, something which Facebook was able to obtain because it originally only let college students have accounts. Facebook also has worked very hard to not let silly stuff like spam and porn infiltrate its pokes and friend requests.