Small Potatoes
What is a small potato? Is it
exactly what it sounds like or is it a reference to something else? “The
breakneck speed of media evolution in the 21st century has left some
major new media in the dust, or at least not as prominent as they were just a
few years ago.” That is what small potatoes are in reference to new media. Some
smaller potatoes are MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Second Life, and Podcasting. Some
feel that these smaller potatoes should either be considered more than just a
small potato or should just be forgotten all together. In my personal opinion,
MySpace should be forgotten all together.
MySpace is a social networking
website where you can create a profile page to communicate with friends or meet
new friends. It first jumped onto the scene in 2003. When MySpace first jumped
onto the scene, its constant rise of users who signed up and were online was
extremely high. Fast forward 10 years later and there is hardly anybody who uses
MySpace anymore making it a small potato. Some small potatoes can be revived
while some should just totally be forgotten about. I think in MySpace’s case,
it should simply just be forgotten about. There is no hope in MySpace becoming
relevant again.
An article was posted online two
years ago by marketingweek.co.uk entitled “Four Reasons why MySpace Failed to
Retain the Social Networking Crown.” In my opinion though, there are only three
reasons worth mentioning. Those three reasons are…
- Lack of loyalty to its users;
- Lack of innovation; and
- Lack of understanding about itself.
When MySpace first came onto the
scene, it appealed mainly to people who were between the ages of 13-15-years
old. MySpace failed to update to appeal to an older age and those
13-15-year-old kids went away from MySpace and joined a more popular social
networking site called Facebook. Facebook is not hard to master or understand.
It only takes a few seconds as opposed to MySpace, which can take some time. Not
only is MySpace pretty much hard to grasp, it also lost site of what its main
purpose was which is to communicate. The website begin to primarily focus on
entertainment as oppose to communication.
I am curious to know how many people
actually still visit MySpace today. Although I am pretty sure the number is
low, I want to know how low. So long MySpace! You had a great run, but now I
think it’s just time for your website to just be shut down from existence
altogether.
Works Cited
O'Reilly, Laura.
"Four Reasons Why MySpace Failed to Retain the Social Network Crown."
Marketing Jobs & Marketing News. N.p., 12 Jan. 2011. Web. 05 Nov.
2013. <http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/four-reasons-why-myspace-failed-to-retain-the-social-network-crown/3022208.article>.
Levinson, Paul.
"Smaller Potatoes." New New Media. Upper Saddle River:
Pearson, 2013. N. pag. Print.
Aaron, I completely agree. Myspace has become a smaller potato for a good reason. Facebook slowly took over and it has Myspace hasn't been the same since. Along with the internet addiction, people have developed an addiction to instantly new things. That certainly has not been Myspace. People have a bad image of Myspace, it has been slow to evolve and it is not one of a kind. Popular music websites like sound cloud or the emergence of spotify. Like what Aaron said, Myspace lacked innovation. Myspace allowed people to do what they wanted with their profile from the get-go, allowing users to basically write their own internet code for each profile. Facebook on the other hand did not give users that kind of power, it just changes often and users are always experiencing new layouts and new features that they do not have to dig up or create. Myspace needs to be forgotten about and deleted.
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