Questions about MySpace and Facebook

[msagara]

I'm not entirely a luddite. But. Well. MySpace and Facebook? They make me feel bemused and almost entirely incompetent. But I know there are a bunch of people in my flist that probably don't feel either of these, and I thought I would, you know, badger you for helpful advice.

1.* How does it work? I recently created a MySpace account and then ... kind of clicked in circles because I couldn't really figure out how to do anything, or in fact even figure out what I was supposed to do. My oldest son and my friends mock me mercilessly in Facebook, and because I love them, I want to avoid having to kill them, so I haven't yet created an account there.

2. Have you found it helpful?

ETA: * as in rudimentary step-by-step instructions as if you were speaking to your 5 year old dog. Because I in theory understand that you are suppose to build a friends-list there, but cannot figure out how to do this.

Comments

[april-art.livejournal.com]

Some people find MySpace useful for marketing or publicity or keeping in touch with fans/readers, etc. It basically has a LOT of people on it, mostly in a certain demographic. It probably can't hurt to have a page up (unless you do get some malware, of course). You wouldn't need to active or friend anyone back, probably... mostly you could just post any announcements or whatever in their blog function.

I find the UI very clunky there... I'm not a horrible luddite, but it isn't easy for my old dog brain to figure out, either. I joined up a year or so ago but haven't done much with my account aside from friend a few people. Most found me--one of whom was a cousin of mine. Users just manage to find you out. I certainly am not going looking...

I had a friend who discovered that someone had created a fake MySpace page for her! It was actually quite a nice page and looked totally authentic--with correct information and all. I was actually fooled by it, myself. She got MySpace to take it down. Her market overlaps the MySpace demographic, but she obviously doesn't feel the need to be there.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I had a friend who discovered that someone had created a fake MySpace page for her! It was actually quite a nice page and looked totally authentic--with correct information and all. I was actually fooled by it, myself. She got MySpace to take it down. Her market overlaps the MySpace demographic, but she obviously doesn't feel the need to be there.

I admit that if I found something like this, I would probably write to the person who set it up and ask if, since it was very nice, they would mind if I actually used it...