The rise and fall of Myspace (Essay Sample)

Social Status: The Rise and Fall of Myspace Name: Institution: Rise and fall of Myspace Introduction In this rapidly changing world of technology, techie, and social media companies are always in a hurry to catch up with the marketplace trends. The establishment of dominance is no longer a determinant of success. There are innovations each day and requires a highly creative team to ensure that a company remains relevant to the needs and wants of the consumers. No company is immune to change and competition. Myspace rose to power about thirteen years ago. However, the lack of a sustainable plan, coupled with the inability to enhance creativity and flawed mergers, pushed the social media mogul into a sudden fall, only six years after its development. Discussion Myspace developers were blindsided by the need to become a trendsetter in the world of social media and forgot to assess the possible challenges their developing language would cause to the site. The company used a poor language, ColdFusion, which was not only user unfriendly but also limited the level of creativity. The developing language did not allow developers from outside to add new applications to the site. As a result, Myspace became redundant, and Facebook easily overtook it, with the help of their open-source-code model. Also, the buying out of the company by News Corporation pressurizes the social site to sustain a particular performance level, instead of focusing on the enhancement of the already existing technological factors of the site. Myspace’s inability to limit illegal content posed a threat, especially to children, who had no restrictions on visiting the site. Therefore, Myspace received a negative opinion of endangering children by exposing them to social media predators, among other non-child friendly content. So all in all, it is Myspace’s mismanagement that is to blame for the unexpected fall of the social media guru. When Facebook came into the market, they aimed at maximizing on Myspace’s failures. Unlike Myspace, Facebook’s open-source-code promoted creativity and allowed the users to interact more with the networking program. It also gave the users an opportunity to form personalized networks and even search for their classmates. Myspace lacked a competitive edge since it only offered a broad search but also lacked the customization that responded to customer needs. Most of the advertisements posted on Myspace were disturbing and repulsive, a factor that disgusted most users and forced most of them to exit the network. The inability to restrict promotional content on the site chased most of the users. As a result, the mass departure of users meant that there was less audience for marketing hence most advertisers opted to cut ties with Myspace. So, the company’s revenue, which largely emanated from promotional content, reduced the beginning of Myspace’s problems. When Facebook was only in its initial stages, Myspace was the social media giant. At first, Facebook ignored a section of its users, a move that aided the company to analyze and measure the ability of Myspace to cater for the consumer segment (Walter, 2013). Many people would argue that Facebook’s ignoring of a portion of its users was non-entrepreneurial. However, Facebook only did so as to enable it to have an ample time to study the market, so as to determine whether there was a need to venture into the ignored markets. Facebook began as a mere social media site that connected people. However, as time passed by, the company diversified into marketing. One thing to note is that Facebook waited until it had majority consumer population, before venturing into advertisements and promotional content. At the time of Myspace’s rise, Friendster, an Asian company, dominated the social media market. Friendster grew into one of the leading venture capitalist firms in the world and attracted numerous offers from wealthy corporations all over the world. In 2003, Google moved in to buy out Friendster at a $30million offer, which the company declined. On the other hand, Myspace had gained traction and became a great competitor to Friendster. In 2005, News Corporation bought out Myspace at $580million. It is the buying out of bot Friendster and Myspace that sparked the downfall and inability of the two companies to beat Facebook, which is currently a giant in the social media market. Widespread mismanagement and the diverted attention from technological creativity became the downfall of both Myspace and Friendster. Acquisition by big firms can be both advantageous and dangerous, especially for small companies. The new owners were unable to cater for the needs of the clients of Friendster and Myspace, a factor that enhanced the appeal of Facebook to social sites users. The cultural organization of News Corporation did not promote innovation. So, Myspace lagged behind in creativity and became too boring, particularly for the users who wanted a creative platform to enhance the development of personalized applications (Hartung, 2011). It is important to know the right time to sell and when not to sell. Companies should only sell under a particular set of circumstances. First, the company should be at its peak, enjoying the highest possible returns. Secondly, it should have a majority shareholder of the market and i...