The war rages.
Not really. The two most popular online social networks seem to be in a competition, the purpose of which is not clear. Both are free to join, and many people have both.
However, to the well-invested user, there is a certain choice to be made. The old favorite Myspace, or the new and less “child like” Facebook? Arguments for one or the other are easy to find, but not so easy to take seriously.
Sure, there are general differences, but too many similarities to make an honest argument for either. Lets face it, these are both social networks used mainly for entertainment, and do not carry the power of, let’s say, a political party affiliation. Let’s humor the arguments.
Open either network, and the aesthetic differences are immediately apparent. Myspace will instantly appeal to the younger of heart, with colorful backgrounds, graphics, glitter, quotes and music. Browse profiles, and find a continuum of younger ages. However, open your own page, and almost anyone can get wrapped up in designing his or her own “space”. The ability to choose any color, song, or place pictures anywhere you like can keep you entertained for hours, and all according to your liking. An artistic landmine with social connections. What is not to love?
There is, apparently, something not to desire. As members get older and enter the adult and oh-so-grown-up real world, it seems they have the desire to leave behind any connection to their younger, unsophisticated self, which includes Myspace. The solution seems to be to graduate to Facebook, a social network that seems to pride itself on the notion of being the ‘anti-myspace”. It’s a safe haven for the grown up version of ourselves to continue our online identity when the socially acceptable age limit for Myspace has expired.
Browse profiles on Facebook and you will find a much older crowd, with careers and genuine college degrees.
certainly more appealing to the adult group, while it’s features, you will find, certainly appeal to the child within. Facebook offers the same page layout for every member, with the arguably more subdued color scheme of pale blue and white. No glitz, no glam. The palate is left wanting in the creativity department. Your name, contact info, interests, education, and work are laid out like a resume, which may be the point. No options are available to define your page with your own signature personality. All this wrapped in the promise of a more sophisticated networking sight.
The promise may fall short.
Under the clever facade of neutral pages you will find a slue of ‘applications’ that can leave even the most educated professional baffled. Every time you open a page, you will surely find more applications to add, such as “The Green Patch” to save the environment(?!), contests, mafia games, and the unforgettable “Superpoke” which enable you to make certain actions with your friends. Go ahead, throw a sheep at, bake cookies with, slap, kiss, pinch, salsa dance with any one of your friends with the click of a mouse. Don’t forget to take part in the contests that Facebook offers. “The Hottie Contest”, “The Coolest Person Contest”, or the “Most Beautiful Person Contest” all sound like Third grade playground games, and yet cannot be found on Myspace.
So, Myspace or Facebook? Really – it doesn’t matter. They are the same thing, and serve the same purpose for us social creatures.
What seemed like a perfect social experiment several years ago to human psychologists yielded its results almost as soon as these two networks got started. Us acceptance-seeking humans will do almost anything to fit in with those we want to identify with. We want to be one with the group. People joined Myspace because their peers were, and followed over to Facebook for the same reason. Critical thinkers would call it common practice; we – to the amusement of these critical thinkers - would say that everyone is doing it. Simply put, we will follow the crowd.
So choose whichever you like, you will get exactly from the network what you put into it: A feeling of acceptance and unity with your peers. Proof of another social conclusion known for years: find some way to offer acceptance and connection, build it, give it a catchy title, and indeed, we will.

MYSPACE: CUSTOMIZATION

MySpace’s number one feature is, without a doubt, the ability to customize your page. With a little HTML or CSS knowledge, you could be the envy of all your friends on MySpace. If you can’t code, MySpace has some thorough and easy-to-use profile builders. And now that the profile builders work with Firefox, this feature just got even better.

MYSPACE: FRIEND UPDATES

Wondering if Tom will ever put up a new picture or update his profile content? Instead of refreshing his page every other second, just let Friend Updates do your dirty work for you. With this feature, you get a nicely organized section informing you exactly when any one of your selected friends changes anything in their profiles. Meaning you will have time to check out Jerry’s page after all.

MYSPACE: TOP FRIENDS

MySpace’s Top Friends is quite different from Facebook’s feature with the same name. Although you don’t exactly customize the look of your MySpace Top Friends, you do get a “Randomize” option, a must-have when you respond to the ever so popular “How come I’m not in your #1 spot?” question. Or the even worse, “Why aren’t I in your Top Friends?” That’s hard to explain when there are now 40 Top Friend slots to fill.

MYSPACE: BLOGS

MySpace is the one of the few social networking sites with this feature. Who doesn’t love blogs? Why, if it weren’t for my friends’ blogs, how would I know that Julia ate bad Mexican food for lunch and is now sick or Kevin flunked his calculus exam? Not only can you read blogs and write blogs, but you can subscribe to favorite blogs and comment on them – even if the person is not on your friend list. Now that’s a nice feature.

MYSPACE: MOBSTERS

Ever want to rule a small, fictitious city with your friends? Well, now you can.Mobsters is a text-based game application that lets you build a mob and rise to power as a MySpace mob family. From real-estate management to player fights and muggings, Mobsters is Godfather-caliber entertainment.

FACEBOOK: PHOTOS

This application is by far my personal favorite. It’s easy and versatile. With quick album uploads, live Web cam shots and the “tag this photo” feature, this application is just so fun to use. And now, with the ability to set a tagged photo as a profile picture, as well as crop and edit each image, Photos goes beyond its rival networking sites’ abilities.

FACEBOOK: VIDEOS

There are so many options with Facebook videos. Users can broadcast a live feed to all of their friends or upload videos straight from their cell phones. Videos can record and send a video message, in case all of those hard-hitting class papers have left cramps in your fingers.

FACEBOOK: SUPER POKE

Okay, this application is just cute and flatters my girly side. I mean really, why tell Susie you think those pink shoes she wore today were awesome when you could just throw a sheep at her? Super Poke is a custom application in which you send your friends a virtual poke with a clever message attached. Nothing says “Hey, cute shoes!” better than a flying sheep or glass of tequila.

FACEBOOK: iLiKE

Who doesn’t like music? It’s only natural to want to share your new love for Katy Perry or that new Taboo song you have stuck in your head. iLike lets you do just that. You can add music to your profile, share music with you friends, find upcoming concerts of interest and even see which one of your friends is going to a concert. The only thing it can’t do (yet) is find you a ride to the concert.

FACEBOOK: TOP FRIENDS

Top Friends allows you to get the most out of Facebook. You can customize your Top Friends block by adding a profile skin, music and pictures. You can give gifts to your top friends and keep tabs on them with Top Friends news.