Social: FaceBook VS MySpace VS LiveJournal VS Others

[naerey]

Somehow I'm betting most of USA is using Facebook, but anyhow!

There's probably been a such topic already..
but surely not with vk.com ^^

Facebook
- USA
- Global/most popular

MySpace
- USA
- Musicians mostly

LiveJournal
- USA

Netlog
- European
- Mostly teens (?)

VKontakte
- Russia based, now internationalizing
- Gives more freedom (over facebook) eg. media sharing

Orkut
- Google owned

Google Wave
- Google owned. duh


All are International, but for one reason or the other they managed to grab hold in particular countries.. why?

Just because they had localized versions? Like netlog had it's version in some 6 european languages, whereas VK started as just plain Russian.

What's the next big hit?
Facebook allows apps and lots of great stuff. Personally I like it.
Though I've seen VK also allows to upload music and any kind of media... pretty much without restriction (?) people seem to like that...

Google's made it's Wave. Could it substitute or change our social sites? Sure, they're aiming for different areas. But not too different

 

[Sharky]

They're all rubbish, and as far as I can tell, Google Wave is designed as a replacement for email.
I hope they all go away. Facebook used to be good, but then it became popular, and they added stuff like 'Applications', and it kept going down for 'maintenance'.

 

[ah-blabla]

The Facebook architecture just isn't up to the user numbers it gets now: the FB chat function hardly works, and sometimes the whole site just goes slow. Also, a reason that FB isn't as popular outwith english speaking countries is because its translations are pretty poor: The German and Polish translations which I tried were quite bad, so I doubt other translations are very good.

BTW, Bebo is quite popular in the UK still, but more and more people are switching to FB.

 

[ubahobu4]

For my mind this comparison is incorrect. Those sites are aiming different auditory.
For example: LiveJournal is a blog engine, VKontakte is social network engine.
They have different goals and purpose.

You can compare myspace, vkontakte, facebook because they have similar idea. (Not sure about Netlog and Orkut never used those). But LiveJournal and Google Wave are just different.

 

[adamparkzer]

I don't like social networking sites. I voted for Facebook, because even if I don't like social networking sites, I still use it. But if Twitter had been on the list, I would've probably selected that.

Facebook sort of stole Twitter's @ concept, now that you can tag people in your status updates with the @ command. However, Twitter still has an advantage that you can advertise more easily to a wider range of audience, not just your friends.

 

[fractalfeline]

I have a Facebook account. Mostly my friends were on it so I thought Why not? So I've had it for years now. I've never tried the others. Nowadays, I use it to play the mini-games and applications, not so much for the social networking. With my friends scattered post-graduation, I find that Facebook just ain't the same as face-to-face socializing.

I suppose social networking is the Thing now. It's just not very interesting to me, personally though.

Sorry for topic hijacking!

 

[srikri]

I voted for orkut and most of the time use orkut to get in touch with relatives and friends. Orkut is easy to use, navigate and understand compared to other social networking and the feel of the web page also makes difference. One of the other reason could be due to many localized versions which other social networking does not have except for facebook.

 

[boris333]

I will be the first to admit that I hate pretty much all social networking sites, if not for the way they are designed or some other technical aspect, then for the people who tend to make said sites the mainstay of their lives and social basis.

Does anyone else here remember when we actually kept in touch by calling our friends or by actually going over to visit with them and do other activities with them?

Does anyone else here remember when a picture of a person nearly passed out in a puddle of their own vomit was met with revulsion rather than with 'ohey, this would make a great profile pic'?

Social networking sites were intended to help people bolster their social lives, but what happened instead followed the law of unforeseen consequences. Rather than improving a person's social life, it has often simply replaced said life.

If you want to improve your social life, get off of your computer and do social activities with your friends, rather than sit at your keyboard typing 'omg, lol!' and whatever few words are left in your social vocabulary.

 

[naerey]

I will be the first to admit that I hate pretty much all social networking sites, if not for the way they are designed or some other technical aspect, then for the people who tend to make said sites the mainstay of their lives and social basis.

Does anyone else here remember when we actually kept in touch by calling our friends or by actually going over to visit with them and do other activities with them?

Does anyone else here remember when a picture of a person nearly passed out in a puddle of their own vomit was met with revulsion rather than with 'ohey, this would make a great profile pic'?

Social networking sites were intended to help people bolster their social lives, but what happened instead followed the law of unforeseen consequences. Rather than improving a person's social life, it has often simply replaced said life.

If you want to improve your social life, get off of your computer and do social activities with your friends, rather than sit at your keyboard typing 'omg, lol!' and whatever few words are left in your social vocabulary.

Wow, you have a rather pessimistic view on society..
I do agree on some of your points, as for a few people it has 'decreased' what social life they had, especially with all those Facebook Apps/Quizzes that people keep doing..
But if you look on the positive side of it, it allows you to stay in contact with people that live far away.
Could you be knowing what a relative was doing, seeing his photos every now and then and talking with him, when he's 500km away?

Personally I have a few relatives that live really far, in other countries, and my phone bill would be outrageous if I called them. Sure, there's skype, but it's not too comfortable when here's 6pm and over there 6am :/
The same with friends, although it's really hard to keep friendships over long distances...
Something like "If I don't see you, I forget about you" :/
With social sites I guess it just takes more time...

 

[Sharky]

But if you look on the positive side of it, it allows you to stay in contact with people that live far away.

Sure, if 'staying in contact' means being on a 'friend' list. I've seen people having thousands of friends of facebook... how is that anywhere near a deep meaningful friendship. Going back to the root name of this sort of site, 'social networking', yeah sure, it's keeping a healthy number of people in a network, but calling them friends is just wrong. If a friendship degrades to just reading short one or two line status updates, that's hardly a friendship worth having.

Could you be knowing what a relative was doing, seeing his photos every now and then and talking with him, when he's 500km away?

Email? Post? Phone (I know this is addressed later...)? ....God forbid, write a letter?

Personally I have a few relatives that live really far, in other countries, and my phone bill would be outrageous if I called them. Sure, there's skype, but it's not too comfortable when here's 6pm and over there 6am :/
The same with friends, although it's really hard to keep friendships over long distances...
Something like "If I don't see you, I forget about you" :/
With social sites I guess it just takes more time...

Then call two or three hours later, I doubt you go to bed at 8/9pm! Plus, with Skype you can do video calling/conferencing.

Please note, this isn't a personal attack on you or anyone else here, just a general rant on things I've heard again and again by different people. Just happens you managed to get it in one post!

 

[adamparkzer]

Sure, if 'staying in contact' means being on a 'friend' list. I've seen people having thousands of friends of facebook... how is that anywhere near a deep meaningful friendship. Going back to the root name of this sort of site, 'social networking', yeah sure, it's keeping a healthy number of people in a network, but calling them friends is just wrong. If a friendship degrades to just reading short one or two line status updates, that's hardly a friendship worth having.

This makes sense. When I first signed up for Facebook, I started off by friending people that I was really actually friends with. But pretty soon, people that went to my school started friend requesting me, even though they weren't really friends with me. I ended up accepting incoming requests from everyone who went to my school, and now I have over 700 "friends." I still have a huge handful of requests from people that I don't know and don't go to my high school - I just let those rot in my notifications inbox.

 

[ah-blabla]

This makes sense. When I first signed up for Facebook, I started off by friending people that I was really actually friends with. But pretty soon, people that went to my school started friend requesting me, even though they weren't really friends with me. I ended up accepting incoming requests from everyone who went to my school, and now I have over 700 "friends." I still have a huge handful of requests from people that I don't know and don't go to my high school - I just let those rot in my notifications inbox.

That happens to me occasionally that someone I don't/barely know sends a friend request, but I just ignore them.

Sure, if 'staying in contact' means being on a 'friend' list. I've seen people having thousands of friends of facebook... how is that anywhere near a deep meaningful friendship. Going back to the root name of this sort of site, 'social networking', yeah sure, it's keeping a healthy number of people in a network, but calling them friends is just wrong. If a friendship degrades to just reading short one or two line status updates, that's hardly a friendship worth having.

I completely agree with this.

Email? Post? Phone (I know this is addressed later...)? ....God forbid, write a letter?

Using things like FB it is possible to have an informal "conversation" (there should be a better word for this) with multiple people. It is quite useful to keep up to date with my friends in school since I'm abroad. For "important" people I do use a phone, and email for work related issues, but for just "chatting" with friends abroad it is quite useful to use FB. (Since I'm doing the same school course as people who are abroad, but different from the people around me, it is especially useful.)

 

[adamparkzer]

Using things like FB it is possible to have an informal "conversation" (there should be a better word for this) with multiple people. It is quite useful to keep up to date with my friends in school since I'm abroad. For "important" people I do use a phone, and email for work related issues, but for just "chatting" with friends abroad it is quite useful to use FB. (Since I'm doing the same school course as people who are abroad, but different from the people around me, it is especially useful.)

I hate communicating through Facebook, people end up thinking I'm ignoring them when they don't receive responses for long periods of time because I'm not on Facebook.

I prefer instant messaging, seeing as I'm just about always connected as long as I'm at home.

 

[playminigames]

i think google wave will see people come from facebook, but i think it will take over a year for everyone to notice it and transfer over, not many people will want to do that, uploading pictures, and all that stuff just for a few extra features. but i think google wave will get some people.

 

[penarth]

i use Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. I think Facebook is the best. I think the applications can be a bit pointless though. Especially as you've got more than one of the same type... i.e Farmville and Farm Town.. that to me is pointless but people love playing them and I guess that's what they are there for. I found a lot of friends that I lost contact with on there though which is great.

 

[poepoe1122]

I prefer facebook, it's the cleanest looking one I know

 

[user681]

facebook..but I'm wanting to try out google wave jsut to see what it's like compared to the others
unfortunately I don't have an invite :/

 

[bradym]

One other good thing about FB is something I've seen my 16 year old son do with it--get homework help from friends and classmates. He'll be doing his calculus and get stuck. He'll post the question on his FB site and I guess there's a notification that goes out. Well within 15 minutes he's got an answer--and from a different person every time. Could he have called? Sure, but by the time today's kids get to homework it's too late to call someone's house and disturb their parents.

Other than that and a few other times when he has actually gotten something useful out of FB, I think that for the most part it trivializes friendship and communication.

 

[Derek]

I started out with myspace and eventually stayed with Facebook. I have to say facebook has many apps and is very entertaining. I ditched myspace since it was getting cluttered with crap, I am guessing facebook is growing really fast right now.

 

[Dazz]

I'm not a huge fan of any but have accounts on a few (can post my blogs homepage and get some good backlinks )

I notice that myyearbook isn't up there though that's getting quite popular now.