One of the nice thins about creating a YA Twitter directory, is I now follow (with @readwritetweet) everyone listed there. Today I came across The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online (via Justine Larbalestier, YA author, @JustineLavaworm) on how we socially classify ourselves through MySpace and Facebook. To quote one of the teens in the article (and much of the basis for it):

Kat (14, Mass.): I’m not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever, and Facebook is all… not all the people that have Facebook are mature, but its supposed to be like oh we’re more mature. … MySpace is just old.

The article then proceeds to dig deeper into the race/class aspect.

I can’t argue with the perception as such, Facebook is generally considered “higher class,” but I think it has more to do with function than social class. A sociologist sees stratification. A web designer sees, well, web design.
Sure, MS & FB are social sites, but doesn’t mean they function in a similar way or with the same goals.

Design

Let’s start with FB.

Facebook is clean, structured, simple. It uses a lot of white, gray and blue, the standard colors for sites that want to scream professionalism. This is why most news outlet sites use them, including the NY times, Washington Post, CNN (with a dash of red), and FOX.
Like these, the FB design is neither innovative or noteworthy. It’s whole purpose to to focus the user on content rather then the design itself. In photography, this is the equivalent of blurring out the background so your subject is in focus.
Also note how the ads are small, and on the right side of the screen. There are no blaring elements, nothing bouncing in your face. On the other hand, you have no option to make your page look different from anyone else’s.

MySpace, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. While it sticks to the whole blue/white/gray color rule on its main page, it lets users customize their own pages as they wish. MS is just as much about (user) design as it is content. Photographically, this means everything in the image is in sharp focus.

If users want to open with a big header image, they can. If they want a pink, green, and red background, it’s all theirs. However, while offering optimization, MS doesn’t have the structure of blogging sites like Livejournal or Wordpress.com, that can handle customization within a clean, uniform boundary. For example:

Music that starts automatically, a horizontal scrollbar, vast amounts of unnecessary space between elements, no restricted width or height – MS allows users with no coding knowledge to use (and often make a hash of) code. Ads are prominent (banner at the top of every page), and the default setup is neither as clean nor uncluttered as Facebook’s. (If FB is the NY Times in terms of design, MS is the KC Star.)

The upshot of all this is MySpace intends to be (and is) exactly what the name implies – a personal space on the net just for you, and customizable by you. You can paint, put up wallpaper, decorate it however you like.
Facebook is a social directory.

Social sites vs. social directories

I loved Facebook in college. Not because I could friend people online, but because I could locate almost anyone. As photo editor of the paper, FB saved my life. Need the email of the card club president? Check FB. Need to call that student your reporter profiled but-somehow-lost-the-kid’s-number-sorry? Message them on Facebook. As long as you had an .edu email, you could access the real name, number, and email of kids all across the states. Facebook is the ultimate “See where your classmates are now!” service. Even I, who was home schooled, have had a “You may not remember me, but I knew you back when you had pimples” FB message.

MySpace started in a time when everyone thought that posting any information online, including your real name, would get you raped and brutally murdered. Last names are hard to come by on MS, and phone numbers are rare. Your page can be as anonymous or detailed as you like. You have the options.

While FB is now open to everyone, it began as a school networking tool. Your page was automatically private, to semi-protect your information, but it required that you use your real name.
MySpace was always open and unconcerned what name you used. That was your business.

Media

Of the two, MySpace is by far the leader in media content in pages. You can post videos and music that will stay visible on your page forever (and not as a news item, or buried under links). It’s the music side that really stands out. Most bands/artists/singers are on MySpace. If they’re not, they should be. MySpace offers an excellent embedded music player, easy tour date info, and best of all allows users to embed songs on their pages from MS bands. If it’s hosted on MS, it can be your theme song. While, as a rule, I hate music on sites (even on photography sites), the ability to embed songs I love in an accepted forum is amazing. The song may be a pre-release, as yet unavailable anywhere, but I can go to my page and listen to it all night.

Media on FB is all in news snippets and secondary to its primary networking function, except for photo management. FB has an excellent photo album and upload program. But even here, the directory is active. You can tag people in your photos, which means someone looking for a picture of you in different situations can find all they need.

Maturity

In general, MS attracts a younger crowd then FB. Often a much younger crowd. While one could argue all the aspect of race and social class, I think it comes down to two things:

Design: Facebook is clean, easy to update, easy to navigate, and looks less tacky = older.
MySpace offers lots of customization and embeded music = younger.
As a general rule, older people want non-overwhelming basic function. Younger people want function that’s pretty/cool. If MS is the ghetto of social sites, it’s because it hands out a free box of spray paint to every user. FB keeps everything from wall paint to watercolors behind barbed wire and under constant video surveillance.

Directory: MySpace groups mostly anonymous users by interest = younger.
Facebook has everyone’s name, school, work, email, and often telephone, plus easy ways to set up event invitations = older.
MySpace is about hanging out online. Facebook is about keeping in touch, setting up offline events, and finding old contacts (ie snooping).

Also Facebook offers everything at face value, as a directory does. It offers better contact info, and apps, but less emotion. It’s much easier to get an idea of a user’s likes/dislikes, favorite colors, current emotions, and general life doings from MySpace. MS was built to focus on you. Facebook was built to network, and the best networking is done when anything much deeper then “My name is…I work at…my interests are…” is kept to a minimum. Not that many MS users go into great depth about their lives (this is usually reserved for blogging), but the ability is more prominent.

Each site has different goals, and reaches them in different ways.
Personally, I have moved on to other things.
Like Twitter.

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