A Grand Unified Theory of YouTube and MySpace 166
Ant writes "Paul Boutin's Slate article explains the factors contributing to the success YouTube and MySpace: they are easy to use (usability), and they don't 'tell you what to do.'" From the article: "Both YouTube and MySpace fit the textbook definition of Web 2.0, that hypothetical next-generation Internet where people contribute as easily as they consume. Even self-described late adopters like New York editor Kurt Andersen recognize that that by letting everyone contribute, these sites have reached a critical mass where 'a real network effect has kicked in.'"
Maybe a little too much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Myspace success (Score:3, Funny)
isn't described by what the interface looks like or how easy it is to use.
Everybody knows myspace is just a place to get laid
Re:Myspace success (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Myspace success (Score:2)
Re:Myspace success (Score:2)
Tell people how to do it right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is one of the main reasons I hate MySpace. Aside from it being slow, I loathe that it is so easy to customise. It means that every person can mess up the CSS and HTML and destroy the look and feel of the site. By not telling people what to do they all run off and do things I that damage the site.
Of course, they all think their own page with a flashing bright backgroud, three different audio tracks playing, and text that blends into the every other item to make it unreadable is just beautiful.
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't been to MySpace in a while, since I think it all looks like vomit, but another complaint I had was that the thing seems to be about 80% covered in ads, and the ads are placed in such a way that you can't tell what's an ad and what's part of the site.
As far as usability, a good way for a site like this to run is to give everyone relatively limited customization. This way the site still provides a consistent look and feel, which is good for usability, but still lets users express themselves through whatever theme they pick. Let the people who know what they are doing design themes, and then give the users a way to customize them to suit their tastes.
TagWorld? (Score:2)
I don't know - they must be doing something right, even if it does look like vomit...
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:5, Funny)
Go ahead and mod me down if you think I'm a troll, but I had fun writing the above
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:3, Insightful)
Myspace is no different.
The web should be hard!! When I was a kid, we hand-coded in vi, dammit!
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2)
I do agree with you... but remember circa-1998 Geocities sites? Or background midis? There's always been crap on the web, but yeah, you're right; it's *easier* to put crap on the web now.
However, I'd argue it's also easier to put cool stuff on the web now. The average blogging software tends to look good, as do a lot of the "ready-to-deploy" messageboards. The problem with myspace is it was horribly coded and designed from the beginning, and it took off in popularity. If some sexy, fast, and powerful web
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:3, Funny)
vi? You had vi? Hah. We had to toggle zeros and ones into the console with switches. And on bad days we didn't even had zeros. And we liked it! Uphill. Both ways. No, wait, wrong rant...
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2)
I personally like a slick design when I see one (I'm little partial to Last.fm, although it'
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:3, Informative)
Greasemonkey kicks all kinds of ass, plain and simple as that.
You missed the point. (Score:3, Insightful)
Aesthetics aside, the point of MySpace isn't to have a site with millions of users, it's to have a millions of sites linked to each other by users and friends. Your criticism is analogous to criticizing the personal sites on university servers for not having a consistent look and feel.
Re:Tell people how to do it right... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree completely. That's why I never go to bars or clubs where they let the patrons dress themselves. Some people just end up wearing the ugliest shit, and it messes up the atmosphere when people have
the secret of MySpace is... (Score:4, Funny)
OMG!!1! ponies!!!1!!
Re:the secret of MySpace is... (Score:2)
Web 3.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
Web 3.0: A website's value increases with the quality of the content being created
I like the whole concept of websites providing a framework where people create their own content and network, but the quality for most of these is terrible. I can only look at so many pictures of half naked drunk teenagers before I get sick of it. Hopefully the next iteration of the web will find some way to weed out the quality content (isn't that the reason we read Slashdot?) and provide more of that.
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:4, Informative)
(which is relevant, because once you have other people deciding what is quality and what isn't, the spammers want to jump in, pretend to be anonymous, and say Hey! my adverts are quality stuff everyone should look at!)
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:2)
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:3, Funny)
It must get worse before it can get better... web 2.1: server side blink [blartwendo.com].
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:2)
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:2)
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:2)
It needs a new concept to move beyond its current noise-collection schema.
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:3, Funny)
I hereby propose a motion to declare reldruH (956292) banished from Slashdot.org for reasons of not welcoming our half-naked Web 2.0 overlords, and, of course, for reasons of insanity.
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:2)
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:3, Funny)
"I know not with which browser Web 3.0's content will be updated with, but Web 4.0's content will be updated with sticks and stones."
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:2)
My propensity to disagree with that statement is directly proportional to how drunk I am.
Re:Web 3.0 (Score:2)
myspace websites? (Score:3, Insightful)
it is just the new geocities combined with one of those social network sites.
I am sure they make good money on ads..
if I see a company with a mission statement that talks about giving stuff away, lots of venture capital and no product then I will really belive that bubble2.0 has arrived..
Re:myspace websites? (Score:2)
I was about to accuse you of exagerating and being pointlessly mean. Then I actualy went to MySpace [myspace.com], clicked on "browse" and opened 5 random pages.
They all look like crap.
I guess that's why I'd never gone to MySpace before today.
Re:myspace websites? (Score:2)
but if that is what web2.0 is "supposed" to look like then that site time travelled from about 1997 or so to now because the last time I saw that many sites with horrible frame-jobs and "wacky" animated gifs was in 1996 (and we were sick of it then)
I have gone further and tried to find a single redeeming site on there.. I have yet to find one..
Re:myspace websites? (Score:2)
Re:myspace websites? (Score:2)
that's why they're so successful really, myspace lets you see a million websites that look absolutely awful and make you feel better than those million people that made them. youtube lets you look at the video that some kid made of himself rapping, to let you feel a million times cooler than that kid. people like to have their own feelings of superiority fulfilled, that's your key to success in web 2.0.
hell, even wikipedia is appealing to that on two levels
Re:myspace websites? (Score:2)
all the websites on myspace look like crap
Jesus, you looked at *every single one of them???*Re:myspace websites? (Score:2)
20k ??
guess giving out cheap webspace and smearing it with ads really does pay off..
I thought that died off with geocities.. saying I have not seen a link to a geocities or tripod whatever etc site in ages..
wow
It's a maaaaddhouse!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Exhibit A [demonbaby.com]
Exhibit B [demonbaby.com]
The prosecution rests.
It's Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
Was this the problem the whole time? We gave users the tools to create their own individual sites, when really they just all wanted to conform to the same one?
Re:It's Funny (Score:2)
You bring up a very interesting point. This is something I've seen a lot lately and I wonder if it's an actual sales/marketing phenomenon. It seems like the more restrictive an application is in it's feature set the better it sells, at least initially. If a software (or any other product) is too br
Re:It's Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not really that hard to understand. Say "you can publish whatever you want for the whole world to see", and they'll think "umm... like what?" and go blank. Say "put X, Y and Z particular things online so your friends can see them", and they've got a concrete example of what they can do, and probably quite a few examples of what their friends have already done.
As a general principle, people are more likely to go for small, tangible goals than open-ended endeavours, even if the requirements and initial results are very similar.
Re:It's Funny (Score:2)
Re:It's Funny (Score:2)
"Oh Jeezz
If thats the case... (Score:2)
Then we should credit Andy Warhol as the father of "Web 2.0". I'm not a huge fan of his art, but I think this prediction accurately sums up such diverse phenomena as MySpace, YouTube, Bubb Rubb, reality TV, American Idol, and All Your Base. Whodathunk we'd actually see this come to pass?
The grand unified theory of grand unified theories (Score:5, Insightful)
rant
Web 2.0 (noun, currently, wait until next week when marketing people start using it as a verb) - definition 1 - the underlying goal of the Internet as it is now finally understood by marketing majors (12 years after it first began getting popular) who never studied in college and now need a term to throw around. Thank you, masters of the obvious.
- definition 2 - Marketing term invented by group without any real technical knowledge (who did not study in school) to reflect the type of technology that frameworks such as AJAX are now offering. Note, there was never a "Web 1.5" when flash first came out because the marketing majors were still "playing catch up".
Re:The grand unified theory of grand unified theor (Score:2)
Re:The grand unified theory of grand unified theor (Score:2)
It's mainly Tim O'Reilly's term, so you're wrong (Score:2)
I don't like the "Web 2.0" marketing fluff term either - but it's mainly propagated by Tim O'Reilly who really does know enough technology to have been hiring people to produce Unix and Programming books since before the Web was developed, and produce a lot of the early Web navigation materials before the search engines came out. He may be *selling* to the marketing-fluff-non-techie crowd, but he's plenty deep technica
Not Sure About Usability (Score:3, Interesting)
I feel this is the single most important factor in any software design be it applications, games, websites, etc... However, I have a myspace site and I find it cumbersome. Editing different things on the page are in different places. It really feels like something a programmer threw together and not something that was designed with usability in mind.
I come from a HTML background. Customizing MySpace has not been easy for me.
I am not sure, but I believe that is why there are programs out there that will do it for you. If it was so easy to customize, I doubt there would be a market for middleware design apps.
As for youtube, it is easy and straight forward. I would not call that usability, but it's just as good in my book.
Re:Not Sure About Usability (Score:2)
ugly, slow... (Score:2, Funny)
A: Michael Jackson!
Uh, I mean, MySpace!!
Youtube (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Youtube (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Youtube (Score:5, Funny)
I can't explain their business model, but thanks to leaked, highly-confidential YouTube documents, I can reveal it to you:
"2. ???"
Note to Moderators: I'm accepting both +1 Funny and +1 Insightful mods today!
Re:Youtube (Score:2)
Re:Youtube (Score:5, Funny)
Viagra?
Re:Youtube (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Youtube (Score:2)
google pages? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just today my wife complained that she had no easy way of publishing photos of our two small dughters (2 year old, and 1 month old) since I turned down my websever and never found time to bring it back up. Quick thought about google pages, and I logged her with her gmail account. She created a webpage with drag'n'drop in just three minutes and she was in hurry, because she was just leaving for a bus. Before she left I could give URL to some of my friends. I was amazed at how google pages were easy to use.
She is not a techie
Re:google pages? (Score:3, Informative)
What's a cool thing
Re:google pages? (Score:2)
Re:google pages? (Score:2)
Re:google pages? (Score:2)
Re:google pages? (Score:2)
because it's just yet another darn different website. She already has gmail account, so she already has google pages. Why bother checking the alternatives when what she has works? And when she is leaving for a bus in four minutes?
Besides I didn't ever took time to check out flickr. But I've spend five minutes one month ago to play with google pages. Yes, I m
Re:google pages? (Score:2)
Re:google pages? (Score:2)
Re:google pages? (Score:2)
With the big knob on the front, of course.
Re:google pages? (Score:2)
I must have been asleep (Score:2)
What Textbook? (Score:2)
TFA: Both YouTube and MySpace fit the textbook definition of Web 2.0
Anybody know where I can get a copy of this textbook?
Re:What Textbook? (Score:2)
Anybody know where I can get a copy of this textbook?
here [amazon.com]
Re:What Textbook? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's down to an uninformed user base (Score:5, Insightful)
More like, you p0st t0 t3h int3rw3b without being labled a noob.
Like all lowest common denominators, these mainstream websites require no real thought, effort, consideration or engagement. It's nothing to do with the internet, it's everything to do with people.
Grand Unified Theory of MySpace? (Score:2, Funny)
Teenagers and students (Score:3, Interesting)
Myspace is the carpark of the internet, and YouTube is the cinema
Re:Teenagers and students (Score:2)
No, myspace is the inside of a bunch of 14 year old girls' lockers. Popularity is based on how many 'friends' one has, coolness defined by how totally fucking batshit someone's "design" is (if flashing, tiled, animated gif backgrounds and shitty-quality imbedded videos can actually be referred to as design).
People do not congregate towards things that are free, available, and simple to use... they follow "everyone else" to trends that the misinformed take as gospel. A person may be smart, but generally 'p
i'm sorry, but you just can't say that (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:i'm sorry, but you just can't say that (Score:3, Interesting)
No, because AOL is an ugly interface that provides plenty of used-to-be-exclusive content. And MySpace is an interface requiring users to make ugly and provide a mixure of original and non-exclusive content (much of it duplicated on a half dozen other social networking sites).
Re:i'm sorry, but you just can't say that (Score:2)
That should be in their joining agreement thing (with the checkbox and whatever)
+1 funny (if I could)
This is the most terrifying headline ever (Score:2)
A Grand Unified Theory of YouTube and MySpace (Score:3, Funny)
Would the new site be... (Score:3, Funny)
Comic Book Guy is in da house! (Score:2)
Excuse me now, but I've something urgent to deal with...
Ouch!! (Score:2)