MySpace seems to be adopting the old adage of “keep your friends close but your enemies closer” when it comes to relations with its social networking rival Facebook. Or perhaps it’s more a matter of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”.
The News Corp-owned MySpace has announced Sync for Facebook, which allows MySpace users to sync their status updates with their Facebook profile or Page. The tool also gives them the ability to share content such as music, videos, game apps, links and photos with their friends on Facebook.
Jennifer Ruffner, director of product, Stream at MySpace wrote on the company’s blog that the tool would allow the millions of musicians on MySpace to share their library of content, including full albums, with people who have ‘liked’ their Facebook page.
“This new sync functionality is part of an ongoing effort to make it simple for people to share their updates beyond MySpace and allow fans and friends to interact with that content across the web,” she said.
To use the tool, MySpace users must click on the settings box in the update module on their homage page, check the box next to Facebook (or Twitter or both), and follow the steps prompted to sync the accounts.
This is a big step for MySpace, which was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for $580 million in 2006. Back then, MySpace was the second most popular site on the internet behind Yahoo! and CNN suggested it was worth three or four times more than Facebook, which was “popular mainly with college students”.
That was then, this is now. It’s been abundantly clear for some time that Facebook has won the race to be the dominant social networking site. In some ways this integration helps consolidate Facebook’s position – which was undoubtedly part of the strategy when Facebook adopted an open API. Yet it helps MySpace more and really the site doesn’t have much choice if it wants to remain relevant for its users.
This integration is a pragmatic and sensible move based in the reality of today’s social media landscape.
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How new is the idea of Myspace linking with Facebook? You could share Myspace blogs on Facebook, THROUGH Myspace, three years ago.
Comment by Ally — August 30, 2010 @ 11:49 am
This desperate move signals yet another nail in the Myspace coffin and for that I am glad. Lots of nice people on the team there but Rupert Murdock and Fox News are poisoning US society with fear mongering and quasi religio-cryptic misinformation. "The Black Robed Regiment"?
It's like a circus of idiots. And Murdoch laughs his way to the bank. No thanks.
As distant as the Myspace tech team wants to keep itself from News Corp. there's no denying that they are in the hands of a company that propagates mis-truths and falsities while reveling in poll results that show 50% of Americans are deluded about the religion of their president. Bummer.
Comment by myspaze — August 30, 2010 @ 1:56 pm
????????
Comment by Georgia Lella — August 30, 2010 @ 2:05 pm
This does nothing except prove the inevitable.
MySpace is officially passé, folks.
Comment by Tom Ditmars — August 30, 2010 @ 4:10 pm
I like the ‘feel’ of this, the attitude. Feels like a new world a-coming…
Comment by Everpresence — August 30, 2010 @ 8:05 pm
I can see how the easy conclusion would be that it's the death knell of Myspace.
I don't think that's the case, necessarily. I don't think Myspace will ever regain the top slot as king of social network sites, but I do think this move gives them a lot more credibility and value. They recognize that FB is the leader, and lots of their users also have FB accounts.
Think about this: Can Facebook users link to their Myspace pages through Facebook?
I saw an article (http://tomorrowmuseum.com/2010/02/08/facebook-is-worse-than-aol/) comparing FB to the old AOL. I think this step by Myspace is one moving away from this model to one that's more open. It says to me "Myspace knows and acknowledges there's another heavy hitter in the social networking field, and we're not afraid of it. We know our users have accounts there, and we are doing what we can to enhance their experience with our site, that which we can control."
Frankly, I'm pretty impressed. This seems like a bold move, and makes me consider revisiting my Myspace page.
Comment by veganboyjosh — August 31, 2010 @ 6:15 am
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