After last week’s rant about MySpace I’d hoped I wouldn’t hear about it anymore, but then I read the article below from Simply Zesty. It has some important points that NRP has been saying for years but still need attention.

The main point being that social network sites come and go and although MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook were all invincible for a period of time they shouldn’t be your only place for fans. As musicians the email list is what we should be pointing all of our social network fans to sign up for, not just Facebook likes.

We are all obsessed with sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin at the moment but rewind a few years to when the term Web 2.0 first popped up and a whole host of different sites were the hot young startups destined for great things.

…There is a good lesson here to show how the hype cycle around websites and services can come and go and what was once lauded and destined for great things can within a couple of years shut down and be abandoned…

Flickr
I wouldn’t say Flickr is in chance of dying nor has it’d downturn been as marked as the other sites on the list but there is no doubt that it is under pressure from a whole host of new photo sharing sites. Flickr is still massively popular but the rise of Twitter and sharing sites like Twitpic, Yfrog and newer apps like Instagram are certainly making people share photos in a whole new way.

Myspace
It’s amazing to think that just over a year ago Myspace were still competing directly with Facebook as one of the world’s biggest social networks but now the decline is so big that Myspace have had to redesign their entire site and allow you to use Facebook connect to make the site more social. The site has been re-positioned to focus on content but it’ll never be the force it once was and you wouldn’t be surprised to hear it was closing down sometime next year.

What Does All This mean?

It means that you shouldn’t hedge all your bets when building up social media profiles or community within a site. Even though you are getting great results or find a site massively useful at the moment doesn’t mean that in a couple of years it will be the same site. Trends come and go faster than ever on the Internet and sites that you one couldn’t live without are obsolete within a couple of years. (More here)

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