MySpace vs. Facebook Face-off by Jake Hartsfield

Jake Hartsfield is a songwriter, producer, touring sound engineer and a member of the TuneCore Marketing Team.

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MySpace and Facebook feel like they've always been around, even though both were founded in 2003 – only six years ago.  The growth of both entities was incredibly fast and speaks for how quickly technology and the world today are changing.  In the last year alone, we’ve seen a number of major power shifts in the world of social media networking.  The biggest one being in December 2008 (one year ago) that Facebook passed MySpace in user numbers. Compete.com reports that Facebook has grown from ~3.4 million unique visits per month in October 2008 to 23+ million unique visits per month in October 2009.  Myspace, has actually declined in unique visits per month from ~55 million in October 2008 to ~50 million in October 2009.  Clearly, Facebook has taken the social networking community (industry, should we call it?) by storm and is still growing in size and popularity.  Yet MySpace is still the number one place people turn to for music.  So, when it comes to the social networking communities and the music industry, which service is more important?  Do they each play different roles in the career of an artist, or share some of the same roles?  Lets look past the numbers and define what each service has become as their roles on the Internet have evolved, and the pros and cons of each.

Myspace – the Beginning

When MySpace was first launched, it grew to become the largest social networking site – most of the users were individuals and used MySpace to connect with friends, plan parties, etc.  MySpace was also one of the few sites offering free accounts that allowed bands to sign up and host their music.  As MySpace grew in numbers, it also grew as the leading place to look for new music – and when you heard about a band, the first place you looked to find them was MySpace.  Even bands that had official websites began using MySpace – if you didn’t have one, you might as well not have existed.  If you were looking for a particular band, you knew they’d be on MySpace and you also knew that their page was going to have a music player easily located in the top-right side of the page.  This dependability made MySpace a more reliable source for music than artists’ official websites.  Every artist’s official website is unique, which means their music player could be anywhere, and it’s usually hard to find – if they have one at all. The customization that MySpace allowed was very appealing to all users, especially bands.  You could make your page exactly the way you wanted it (if you could figure out the html).

Facebook’s Appeal

1. Ease of Use, Networking - In the early adoption of Facebook, people immediately noticed how easy and simple creating a profile was.  There was no need to learn html or spend time finding a free pre-made layout to make it look good.  It was also much easier to find people, because users were actually encouraged to use their real names. 

2. Clean and Organized - A lot of people actually liked how much cleaner and simpler Facebook profiles appeared as opposed to MySpace.  With people trying to customize their profiles on MySpace, it was hard to find people’s information, and there was a lot of poorly programmed html, which caused a lot of bugs and unreadable pages.

3. Dynamic Interface - Sharing information was so much easier on Facebook that it prompted people to use Facebook as a platform for sharing ideas and connecting instantly with people on a national scale.  It allowed people to be creative and use groups to discuss politics, sports, form organizations, and raise money.

4. The Status Bar – This utterly simple concept encouraged people to visit each other’s Facebook pages more frequently to see what they were doing.  The inherent power of the status bar should be apparent after the tremendous hype we’ve seen with Twitter.

    5. Less Spam – Facebook – from the beginning – has had much less of a spam problem than MySpace, due to heavy policing by the site admin and Facebook users’ intolerance for it. These innovations that trumped MySpace in usability and popularity caused the paradigm shift in personal users from MySpace to Facebook.

Why MySpace still holds the spotlight for music

Facebook was not originally intended to be a music website – when it was growing in popularity, in still did not have working music players.  Some applications were slowly introduced that allowed people to play their own music on their profile pages, but it didn’t allow bands to create pages.  Bands could make fan groups, but couldn’t play music on the actual pages. MySpace was still everyone’s #1 destination if they wanted to hear music – and the plus side was you didn’t have to be a member of MySpace to visit a band’s profile.  Facebook soon gave into the pressure to give bands profiles on Facebook and introduced pages, which allow bands to have music players, tour calendars, photos, videos, etc.  Even with these new options, bands couldn’t customize their profiles the way they could with MySpace, or organize their content exactly the way they wanted it.  Facebook became a useful addition to a band’s online presence, but was not the necessity MySpace was.

Similar Features

When Facebook introduced advertising, allowing bands, companies, and individuals to advertise anything they wanted, they offered something that MySpace didn’t have for bands.  It was understated, and not as many bands caught on at first as did the larger companies that were using Facebook.  Following Facebook’s lead, MySpace tried to make advertising on their site as easy as it is on Facebook…The most obvious difference is that Facebook has a much larger, deeper, and easily-targeted demographic of users, which makes advertising incredibly easy and effective.  MySpace has lost most of its personal users, so most of the people looking at the ads are other bands… [Facebook +1] It’s difficult to create & invite people to events on MySpace, and it’s incredibly easy on Facebook.  Creating event pages with fresh media (photos, videos, links) is easy on Facebook.  It’s also harder to get the same fan response and interaction on MySpace… [Facebook +1] MySpace was an easier website to point people to, because everyone was assigned their own URL, defined by their username.  Facebook matched MySpace earlier this year when it started allowing people to grab their own URL’s…[draw] Facebook still doesn’t allow customization of pages, which limits an artist’s creative expression.  MySpace lets artists program their page as if it were a completely unique website, allowing artists to feature videos, graphics, and advertisements in whatever form they want…[MySpace +1] The new google search is beginning to include music results at the top of the list when an artist’s name is searched – it pulls this information primarily from Myspace and Lala. [MySpace +1]

The Verdict

While Facebook is certainly the best place for an artist to advertise and interact with fans, it lacks the appearance of a personal website that MySpace has, and the music player is secondary to the news feed on the page.  On MySpace, the music player is the focus of the page, and far more artists have MySpace pages than have complete Facebook pages. I know of industry folks who will look at a band’s MySpace page before looking at their actual website – (1) to listen to their music, and (2) to see how many friends they have.  Yes, the number of MySpace friends you have is still relevant in the industry today.  It probably not as accurate as the number of fans you have on your Facebook page, which are much more accessible than your MySpace friends, but it still adds credibility.

I think as more bands begin to adopt Facebook pages and focus on building their fan base through Facebook, the number of fans on a band’s page will carry more weight than the number of “friends” on MySpace.  For now, MySpace is still very relevant in the music industry, so I’d recommend having both a strong MySpace and Facebook presence.  MySpace for music, Facebook for fan interaction.

Comments

[justin ratowsky]

http://www.listentojustin.com

I think I should have more friends on myspace and facebook. I just don't have any help from anyone. Doing music on your own is a hard job.

Check out my music and let me know what you think. From this website you can add me on myspace, facebook, youtube, and twitter!

[Sam Cook]

Who is Marcos Stony???????

[Q.Ledbetter]

I think the only problem with MySpace is SPAM. It is at a point now where every message I get is a mass e-mail or comment from an artist whom I have never heard of pushing their music on me. It's annoying and intrusive.

It is important for artists to make a connection, but MySpace makes it possible for artists to make a connection without making a REAL connection. Sites like Facebook, Fanbrige, and Twitter enable artists to make a real connection.

I am sure that as soon as some genius starts a site that has the Spam guards of Facebook, while maintaining the music playability of MySpace, we'll have a new #1 location for social networking.

[Amir]

MySpace acquired iLike and iMeem. What will they do with it?
Google added music search and real time Twitter results.
I'm sure Facebook has something up their sleeves.
It's going to get very interesting.

[gifts for her]

According to me facebook is a most popular and energetic social netwoking site as compare to myspace. Most of the people uses facebook and my space to communicate with there friends.

[Mmmotioncom]

Nice comparison. Also interesting to see opinions of musicians about the pro's and con's of both platforms.

I agree that MySpace is still the most music-centric social network where you can create your artist image. However, people appear to leave MySpace for Facebook to socialize with their friends. The recommendation and sharing tools of Facebook are really strong assets for viral word-of-mouth promotion of bands. The fact is that you must make good music and be an interesting artist to be talked about on Facebook. MySpace promotion works more like old style marketing: a bit more spammy, it's about investing time (and money) in it.

However, I think you must manage profiles on both (and also on Twitter, YouTube and Last.fm and even other) as an artist. We are working on a tool to manage all those profiles from one place. Follow me on Twitter or take a look at the blog at http://www.mmmotion.com to find out about it.

[Pinki Tuscaderro]

BMG, Sony, Universal, and Warner each recently signed contracts with myspace.com. There are strong implications here that should be apparent to any aspiring musician. Now, one might wonder why the big four, the Supreme Rulers of the music industry, would make such a move. Well, to put it simply, myspace and iTunes has done in five years what took the big four nearly a century to gain, control over the world’s music sale revenues. (macworld.com/article/137946/2009/01/itunestore.html).

Facebook is good for keeping in touch with family and friends, but myspace has more features and resources to offer musicians, including myspace records, their upstart record label that produces artists from myspace.

While myspace is great for its audience base and streaming audio, I prefer to go to ourstage.com to meet other musicians. Our Stage is a unique model centered on contests that artists can enter up to three songs in three categories per month. Each cycle, there is a cash prize. What is more, artists can view their standings in real time. (This is a useful tool for understanding a song's potential marketability.) In addition to their own competitions, Our Stage facilitates rotating contests sponsored by various venues, labels, promoters, etc., that each offers anything from recording contracts, gigs, and studio time to music gear, celebrity endorsements, and merchandising.

What makes tunecore.com better than myspace, facebook, and Our Stage is that tunecore offers something that we D.I.Y. musicians did not previously have access to, widespread distribution, and copyright proprietorship. You say you want a revolution? Welcome to the new wild frontier.

[Debonair]

Onethat people never talk about is Youtube and unsigned artists. Youtube has help break more artists from people doing covers in their rooms to signed acts than Myspace has in it's whole history. Boyce Avenue, big Tunecore band, has built their whole career on the Youtube. Youtube is more real and the numbers matter more and it help builds an audience far better than Myspace and Facebook.

[rus stewart]

this is interesting, thought i would include something i'd forgotten to mention before.

it seems to me, Mr.Hartsfield *could* be just a bit biased towards facebook, with maybe even some commercial agenda, but i shared a link to this on my myspace blog because it was interesting.

honestly, for now, while facebook has its redeeming qualities, i far prefer myspace. (at least, as long as they continue looking out for the little guy, at least until the corporate PIGS take over it and spoil it like how everything else is going these days.)

however, i do not agree with the many opinions that are expressed that claim that the "fan base" for a given artist on facebook is somehow more realistic and would somehow show more credibility than an artist's fans on myspace... we all know how "numbers-driven" anything in this world is today, with the mentality that more is more and less is much less...cue up Depeche Mode's "Anything Counts"

i disagree that any website fan base number is credible, really, as i have many fans that actually do not use these, and many that don't have internet access at all. since there are billions of people on this planet, and only less than one percent of them are on myspace or facebook, any given artist that had radio airplay -like myself- will have at least one hundred unknown fans for every one they get on a given website, not to mention the ones that have not yet discovered their music.

it is true that bands promoting themselves did spoil myspace somewhat, but, on myspace, or any other site, i am careful to never "over-promote" and rarely do ever mention anything i do.

when bands DO blatant self-promotion, people see this as spam and it is why most people do not want friend adds from "bands" - so, i never spam comments or emails, and i do not like it when people, bands or otherwise, do that to my page here.

when i post a comment, it is something nice about THEM and not at all about me...

everyone likes their ego petted now and then, so, i found a bit of that actually attracts more fans than a cheesy post saying "hey check out my music" on their comments.

to be honest, i haven't promoted my facebook artist page much, anyway, and only just got the thing partially working the other day, and probably never will have a music player on it...with a grand total of seven fans so far on it as of today, and 105 friends, most of which i personally know, on the facebook personal page that is connected to it.

i will probably take that page down and redo it, as i actually first created it before they had "musician" pages...they were "band" pages instead, and as i am a solo artist, i did not want to be labeled a "band" -they recently changed that to "musician" and mine is actually "other public figure" so i will probably have to redo it.

i have friends on facebook, on my personal page, however, who will not add themselves as a fan on that page, for whatever reason, although we were close friends in person, and in person, they also claim to like my music, so, that illustrates an inaccuracy as per fan base numbers credibility claims.

and i know many people who claim themselves as friends in person, who have myspace and facebook, who will not "friend me" or add themselves as fans on either network, for whatever reason, so that also illustrates an inaccuracy in itself. i probably have hundreds of thousands of fans in the world, but the numbers at this time, on myspace, show something shy of one thousand, due to reasons already explained, and also, most of the time, i just let them find me.

i also disagree with the opinions that claim that people are more accessable on facebook, as it has actually been more difficult for me to find people on that network.

however, being a disguised sales-pitch to promote facebook, that this may be, it was an interesting blog to read, so i thought to share it on my myspace blog.

[Clark]

Facebook is certainly not an artist portal. Too limited and boring visually. And Facebook has a connection demographic that is plain and un-hip and works for someone like my girlfriends 60 year old mom and her 25 year old sister too to meet up with friends. And you will never see the level of personal artistic expression of individuality that is expressed through the customization available easily to Myspace. Spam is easy to erase and ignore. But it exits on Facebook too. Ultimately you should have and service multiple access points on the web for your music, so have both. But I will always find myself looking up a bands music on myspace, never on Facebook.

[Pointofview]

Myspace was ruined by the artists and bands knocking down your door to listen to their music, be their friend, go to their show. We get 50 artists a day, asking for recognition from us, a band. Most bands are only interested in themselves, which really gives Myspace a true meaning, Me Me Me Me Me and all me, MYspace.

[rus stewart]

i have both myspace and facebook, as well as twitter, and i also have ilike and reverbnation. i far prefer myspace.

facebook runs very slow, loads sluggishly, too many hoops, you cannot just google the page and view it, like you can on myspace, reverbnation, and ilike...you have to log in instead, which is a bummer. much of it freezes up if you are on a slower connection, the music player sucks, (had to rely on reverbnation and ilike apps instead)and i actually get more spam in facebook, and even personal friends are reluctant to 'add as fan' on facebook, although the same did on their myspace pages.

myspace's music player is better than ilike or reverbnation in that it allows you to use wma files, which load easier than mp3.

ilike used to let you, but they ruined it and now only accept mp3.

reverbnation and ilike are better in that they let you have more tracks, but reverbnation is limited to 8 1/2 minutes for a 128k mp3 in a eight meg track...you could use a wma file and get a much longer track, (which is essential if you are an ambient artist like myself) but they want you to buy in to 'mega song storage' (cue up tony mugg's corporate PIG comment about myspace/facebook, it goes with all of them)

and, the spammers are getting worse on myspace, and they are putting ads on the upload pages now, which hogs bandwidth on slower connections and can make uploading photos and music very frustrating now.

yeah, i think the artists who are not the "wal-mart" variety...

(the big-boobed popstar, the vocal bubblegum boyband artist, the karaoke-with-a-cowboy-hat country star, the rap thug, the r&b perv... damn american idol instant pop-star reality tv culture!)

..as, although in better times... (damn this economy, damn cellphones and videogames that are keeping fans from coming to support live music, and damn the venues that only book the same ten bands) ...while i made a good life as an artist in the late '80s and early '90s, and had international fame before the internet, i am none of those above 'walmart artist' things, and without a good booking agent anymore (cannot find a good one these days), and without the corporate sponsorship that the 'walmart artists' possess, i perhaps eventually, if the trajectory of the state of things continue on the downward trend, could be among the masses of penniless artist who will eventually be squeezed off the internet by corporate PIGS and fade into obscurity.

[Mark Starr]

The thing that was overlooked in my mind is myspace is about to allow the big 4 to profit from advertising and leave us out.
So my music draws em in, myspace sets em up , and the big 4 make money on my music, and leave me out of the profits once again.
I deleted my myspace account until they remember the indies made it all happen, and they include us.

[P Slone]

Only one logical answer. I have both and then some. The more profiles you have the larger the audience you reach. As long as you have them covered, people can choose their preference, but no matter which one they choose, make sure your there.

[RnBMistress]

I am not too keen on Facebook, for one I can't hardly do anything with the page, as far as designing it. I like it to look professional and not just plane jane. I like Myspace more better, because you have more options, especially with music.

I dont own a twitter account. The Ning sites are on the up and up.