Comparison of Online Communities: MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, MyCyberSpace and Xanga

Seventy-five million people between the relative ages of 14 and 60 have joined the internet phenomenon known as MySpace. MySpace is what is referred to as an online community and the number of people registered with the community grows each day.

But what exactly is an "online community," you might be wondering. To summarize, an online community is a place where registered users create profiles about themselves, upload photos, keep in touch with friends and make new friends. MySpace is not the only one of its kind, however, due in part to the media, it could possibly be the largest, next to those associated with internet services providers such as America Online or MSN.

Other online communities include MyCyberSpace.com, Xanga, LiveJournal, and Facebook, just to name a few. Each of these provide users with experiences and features slightly different than the one before it. Each community offers users a chance to create a profile, asking them to provide similar information regarding their interests, personality, relationship status, occupation and much more. Nearly all information provided can be seen by all users of the services, unless the account preferences have been set to "private" or "friends only." Users of MySpace, MyCyberSpace and LiveJournal are permitted to express their personalities in other ways such as utilizing both pre-made and custom color and design schemes (also referred to as layouts) and photo uploads. With Xanga, users of the free service are limited in their customization options. Xanga is the only one of the five to charge a fee to access certain customizable aspects of the site. Facebook does not offer the opportunity for personalized layouts but does allow users to upload photos.

Also, each one offers a slightly different focus; that is to say, Xanga and LiveJournal offer many features but their primary focus is on the also huge blogging trend. Facebook is only available to college and high school students with an email address associated with a registered school. MySpace uses the entertainment industry, specifically music, as their hook, offering fans, artists and producers an avenue to find one another. And, finally, MyCyberSpace was created in March, 2006 as an alternative to the perpetually mutating MySpace phenomenon and, therefore, is very similar to its predecessor, with a few exceptions, such as MyCyberSpace focuses on networking between its users instead of on promoting the entertainment industry and MyCyberScene also offers its users the option of monitoring traffic to their profiles, something MySpace has not yet provided.

With the increasing popularity of these sites and those similar to them, awareness of what children can and are finding on the Web is increasing to match. According to Facebook spokesperson Chris Hughes, Facebook is the safest networking community of its kind, as users can only view profiles, and thus personal information, of other users in their network. This means students of Central High School can only view profiles belonging to other students of Central High School, and vice versa. And requiring Facebook users to register with valid high school or college registered email addresses ensures that online predators cannot pose as students from Central High School in order to gain access to those students' profiles. No other free online community provides this level of security.

No one community is technically better than the other; it merely depends on what features you are looking for. If you are a college student seeking a way to network with classmates and are more interested in privacy than meeting new people from halfway around the world, then Facebook may be the right place for you. If you are a music lover on the look-out for new and fresh sounds, then check out MySpace. However, if you are just looking for a place to share thoughts about life, politics, religion, pop culture or anything else, a blog-focused site such as LiveJournal or Xanga may be more suited to your needs. And since registration is free for all of these communities, you can take any (providing you have the "right" kind of email for Facebook) or all of them for a test drive and see which one best fits what you are looking for.