[Air-l] viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace

[Jimmy Wales]

The one thing I would like to add to this discussion is that any  
question of flight from MySpace to Facebook must be viewed not only  
in terms of class and social context and norms, but also in terms of  
very basic questions about customer service and attention to detail.

Myspace sucks compared to Facebook.  And that's not an aesthetic  
judgment having to do with professional culture versus bling culture,  
but rather a judgment about how customers are treated, how the site  
functions, etc.  Myspace appears to be clearly in the "milk it for  
money as long as it lasts" mode while Facebook appears to be trying  
to build a sustainable business for the long haul.

I think this is important because if we see alternative/queer/latino/ 
etc kids clinging to Myspace against Facebook we need to understand  
that they really really mean it, that the values of Myspace (cultural  
context, friends, etc.) are valuable enough for them to overlook or  
overcome the general horribleness of the site.  (And again, I am not  
talking about the aesthetic qualities of the site, but the basic  
functionality that is so frequently badly broken on Myspace.)

At Myspace, my account just disappeared one day.  I complained, it  
came back.  Sometimes I try to do some basic function on the site and  
I get an error message saying that the site is broken and come back  
later.  Everwhere I turn on the site they make me click 3 times to do  
something that could be done in one click, were it not for the need  
to show me yet another hot chick dating advertisement.

But still, if we see people fleeing from Myspace, we don't need to  
assume they are getting away from the people they don't like.

--Jimbo