We think it's worth revisiting Rupert Mudoch-biographer Michael Wolff's take on MySpace users one time:
If you’re on MySpace now, you’re a [expletive] cretin. And you’re not only a [expletive] cretin, but you’re poor. Nobody who has beyond an 8th grade level of education is on MySpace. It is for backwards people.
Here's why: at a conference in Paris yesterday, MySpace (NWS) announced "MySpaceID." It allows MySpace users to login to partner websites with their MySpace account and see which of their MySpace friends use the same site.
So yeah, beware: the cretins are coming!
Key to the MySpaceID initiative is an alliance with Google (GOOG) to intergrate MySpaceIDs into Google Friend Connect, which should speed adoption of sites accepting incoming MySpaceID-based logins. Makes sense for both companies: Google already sells ads on MySpace.
Just launched Facebook Connect does the same thing: encourage its users to use their Facebook account to login to other sites throughout the web. (Facebook shunned Google's Friend Connect, preferring to go it alone.)
It makes a lot of sense for both sites to pursue this line, the upsides are obvious: Facebook and MySpace each want to cement user loyalty and gather ever-more information to pass onto advertisers.
But isn't part of the appeal of social networks that they're walled gardens, with user activity only accessible to "friends" and not available on search engines?
See Also:
Facebook: Our Doors Are Just As Open As MySpace's
Google Now Supporting OpenID. Kind Of
Michael Wolff: MySpace And Its Braindead Users Are Going To Zero
On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.
