Not-MySpace... FaceSpace maybe?

It was not that long ago that I heard a net savvy commentator warn that MySpace should be wary of the rapid growth that was making it the place on the Internet for "social interaction". Shortly after hearing this comment NewsCorp announced that it was paying $580 million in cash to acquire Intermix Media Inc., a Los Angeles-based company whose chief asset is MySpace.com. Shortly after that Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. It looked at the time as though Rupert Murdoch had stolen MySpace in comparison.

I found myself thinking about the comment I had heard. The point was simple, MySpace was a big deal because it was the "new - new thing" but what would happen when the cool early adopters did not want to be hanging around in the same "Space" as every other garage band and social network newbie? These mavens would go looking for other cool hangouts to adopt and make these the happening scene to be a part of.

Along comes Facebook: 550 million users later MySpace is all but forgotten and finally has no alternative but to concede that in order to survive MySpace must partner with Facebook.
Yet again, we see a Media Mogul wade into the online space and fail. Although MySpace is not officially dead, this has to be seen as a half billion dollar failure. Under NewsCorp's direction MySpace languished, it could not reinvent itself or sustain the cool persona it had once relied on to recruit new members. Was it doomed to die this kind of a death from the start? Perhaps but YouTube seems to have maintained some relevance and Facebook is always coming up with new gimmicks good or bad.

It would seem that the cyber world's bon vivant yesterday is tomorrows dumpster diver looking for table scraps. Just when something becomes hip and cool, it is no longer worth belonging to. Will Facebook and YouTube fall upon a similar laissez-faire? Time will tell. Meanwhile, we should learn from casualties of the online social network space. Even though the term has just recently entered our digital lexicon there is enough evidence of more failures to come. I am betting Foursquare is the next to go down.

In summary a fad is still a fad and recognizing the online equivalent is not that difficult. Using these fads as tools to create awareness of your product, service and or message is fine. Building your entire strategy around them would seem dubious at best.