Facebook, the Alternative to MySpace

A Force for Good or for Evil?

Areal Tal

I am a proud member of facebook.com. I have reunited with friends that I thought I would never see again (some of which I have forgotten about entirely, but don't tell them that). When everyone first hears about Facebook, it sounds like the greatest thing in the world. When you find a friend you haven't seen since junior high, your face lights up. Just like myspace.com and no name brands that were copies of MySpace, you can:

- send messages to people

- write a comment on their profile - but now they call it your "wall"

- put up (a) picture(s) of yourself - but now other people can post pictures up of you

- and of course you still have a profile with a list of your personal information (meaning lie about your info, put up only ugly pictures of yourself or of ugly people, change your settings to only let a limited amount of people see your info, or you can deal with the alternative - stalkers!)

There are a few more similarities, but let's look at the differences of MySpace and Facebook to see why Facebook is just so unique:

































MySpace



Facebook



Very music oriented



More school/college oriented



A general way to make new friends, sometimes from random places



A great way to further introduce yourself to someone you probably met in school or to get in touch with an old friend



As a result of the randomness of meeting people is more stalker oriented



Slightly safer as a result of being limited to only college kids (you can only log onto Facebook with the email address given to you by your school)



You can search for people by distance from a specified area



You can search for people by school



Has a bulletin where you can send something out that all your friends would be able to read



Has the "poke" feature, where you can "poke" your friends (it shows up on their front page as they log in that they have been poked by so and so) - a playful way of getting someone's attention, possibly used as a way of flirting



A largely negative feature of MySpace is that the people you meet on it, you will probably never see again



A negative feature of Facebook is that although these people are supposedly your "friends," when it is your friend's birthday, it is shot out at you when you first login "It is" so and so's "birthday today!" Now though some people might get some sort of satisfaction that they just had 50 people say happy birthday to them on their birthday, some people really want to know "so which one of my 'friends' really knew it was my birthday or actually even cared?"



Facebook or MySpace: which one is right for you (if any at all)?

Published by Areal Tal

I am a class of 2009 Binghamton University Alumni. I majored in Mathematics & Economics with a heavy concentration on applications throughout engineering, business, and the social sciences. I most enjoy writ...  View profile

  • You can find old friends you never thought you would see again through Facebook.
  • Facebook and Myspace each have lots of unique features you can use.
  • Both MySpace and Facebook have their evils.
The original creators of MySpace swore they would never give in to many demands including the fact that they would never charge for MySpace. In 2005, the copyrights to MySpace were sold to Fox. How do they plan on keeping their promises?

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  • Bob9/29/2010

    Wow, this is an old article, which makes me wonder which new social networking site will be the next big thing. I personally like a new one that just started this month, Abuzzling.com social networking site. It's a lot like facebook, but without all the fluff. I hope it will take off like face book did.

  • Hilda2/20/2007

    I tried facebook but i found zooped.com to suit me much better you should check them out also, I think you'd like it.

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