Over at MySpace, the welcome page now features supposedly attractive new subscribers: “Cool New People.” The feed changes frequently, but I perceive a pattern...
Today's Cool New People include Drea, a male-female hipster pair; Jay, a goateed dude with his young family; and Senator Chris Dodd.
Chris Dodd? “Cool”? Maybe when he was first elected, many, many decades ago. But then, are US politicians John McCain, Dennis Kucinich, Mitt Romney, or Hilary Clinton, who also are Cool New People, any cooler?
MySpace's struggle with its identity crisis couldn't be more obvious. It's trying to be everything to everyone, socially commendable but in practice, unfocused and bland -- like mainline network television.
It's not surprising: cool MySpace is owned by decidedly uncool Rupert Murdoch, the ultra-conservative, multi-billionaire septuagenerian, whose largest asset is his global TV network featuring local versions of Fox News, Fox Sports, and FX. It's the newest business model for MySpace.
I like MySpace's greater focus on its customers. It's become responsive. But who does it see as its customers, ultimately: the advertisers that MySpace is encouraging to take over its virtual community, or the legions of members who are starting to notice that they're being set up for targeted advertising and leaving for smaller, less congested, less commercial, and better-focused social networks?
(An excellent analysis of Murdoch's News Corp.'s online strategy, ambitions, and ups and downs can be found on the current Forbes Online.)
BOB JACOBSON is fascinated by the experience of experience. A planner and technologist, Bob has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Design from UCLA. He's been a policy researcher, technology CEO, science writer, and consultant. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied cellular telephony's impacts on transborder communities in the Nordic Arctic Circle. Bob edited Information Design (MIT Press 2000) and is now writing a book on the theory and practice of creating edifying, transformative experiences.
PAULA THORNTON says, "Understanding human behavior (economics), optimizing interactions (design) and facilitating conversations (markets), are the means to achieve strategic differentiation. This is the focus of our discipline. It is not a 'nice to have'‚ and is not, like documentation once was, an afterthought. It is the means by which to start a strategic discussion and the means by which to drive a tactical initiative. All design should be evidence-based."
