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A Grand Unified Theory of YouTube and MySpace

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the weighty-internet-concerns dept.

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.'"

18 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Tell people how to do it right... by puregen1us · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "They are easy to use (usability), and they don't 'tell you what to do.'"

    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.

    1. Re:Tell people how to do it right... by Moqui · · Score: 5, Funny

      At least a side social benefit of MySpace is that people will be able to discover if they suffer from epilepsy earlier. Flashing text on a flashing background with scrolling neon menubars and CCR's "Fortunate Son" MIDI file playing on high = quality design.

    2. Re:Tell people how to do it right... by AstrumPreliator · · Score: 5, Funny
      I completely agree with you. In fact if anyone were to create the next myspace it might be something like this (I wrote and sent this to a friend a while back to illustrate in a funny way why I hate myspace):

      I have co-designed a plan that will make us millions! We will create the next evolution of myspace. To pull this off our new social network needs to satisfy basic requirements to attract our key demographic - Emos, Hipsters, Fatties, and Douchebags. There requirements are...

      The site must lack any sensible form of navigation from within the site. All profiles should be as gaudy by default as possible. Even better they should be flash based rather than HTML and CSS based so a user who wishes to view the web page must download an inane amount of data to view a poorly designed and incredibly slow profile.
      Rather than only being able to play one song on a profile a user will be able to blaze multiple songs either concurrently or sequentially.
      Everything will have an opacity of 50% or less. Text should blend in with everything in the background making it difficult to read.
      Furthermore, all text shall be of size 9 and use the least legible font known to man - Comic Sans MS - and under no circumstance shall the text be white or black, to do so would defeat the purpose of making it unreadable.
      Several new feature shall also be introduced. One of which is dubbed "the knife" courtesy of RotoSequence. It is named as such to attract the Emo demographic in general. This feature will aid the non-navigability feature. There shall be no links to go to a paticular area of the website. All links shall bring you deeper and deeper into the bowels of the website forcing you to use the browser's "Back" button to navigate to a different part of the site.
      Another new feature fabricated by RotoSequence to attract the Emo demographic is the "Suicide Mood Selector". This will allow users to select their current suicidal mood, e.g. "You feel extreme angst, it's best to go the painless route and shoot yourself."

      If we follow these guidelines I'm sure we can create the next myspace and make millions. As always suggestions are welcome to help improve our vision of the future!


      Go ahead and mod me down if you think I'm a troll, but I had fun writing the above ;).
    3. Re:Tell people how to do it right... by MutantHamster · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's funny how a site dedicated to nerds is so biased against a site dedicated to having friends.

      --
      My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
    4. Re:Tell people how to do it right... by Jello+B. · · Score: 5, Funny

      Only when they make webpages that aren't Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

  2. the secret of MySpace is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...teenage girls

    OMG!!1! ponies!!!1!!

  3. Web 3.0 by reldruH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Web 2.0: A website's value increases with the number of users creating content on it
    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.

    --
    I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
    1. Re:Web 3.0 by Amonimous+Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Web 4.0: Background music on the page is automatically blocked

  4. It's a maaaaddhouse!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    If it please the court:

    Exhibit A

    Exhibit B

    The prosecution rests.

  5. It's Funny by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You know, it's funny when you think about it. For years we've had tools for people to build any webpage they want, from pure HTML up to respectable WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver, and the "general public" never really accepted them. It's only when you take away all their powers to create something unique and individual, and instead give them all the same boring template systems of MySpace and blogs in general, that they actually use it.

    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?

    1. Re:It's Funny by Bogtha · · 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.

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  6. The grand unified theory of grand unified theories by gentlemen_loser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am soooo sick of hearing about "Web 2.0". Allow me to assist the Slashdotting public in understanding the definition of "Web 2.0":

    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".

    /rant

  7. Youtube by Have+Blue · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can someone explain the YouTube business model? It neither directly charges its users nor sells ad space, and streaming video takes a ton of storage and bandwidth. How are they keeping it up?

    1. Re:Youtube by vain+gloria · · Score: 5, Funny

      Can someone explain the YouTube business model? It neither directly charges its users nor sells ad space, and streaming video takes a ton of storage and bandwidth.

      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!

    2. Re:Youtube by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 4, Funny
      How are they keeping it up?

      Viagra?

      --
      That is all.
  8. google pages? by Janek+Kozicki · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm not using myspace, nor I ever will. But that reminds me of google pages.

    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 :)

    --
    #
    #\ @ ? Colonize Mars
    #
  9. Re:Myspace success by TenLow · · Score: 5, Funny

    Only if you're a 14 year old girl.

  10. It's down to an uninformed user base by Odiumjunkie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "they don't 'tell you what to do.

    More like, you p0st t0 t3h int3rw3b without being labled a noob.

    /. doesn't "tell you what to do", but you get modded down if you post in bold ALL CAPS and you LOL too much. LOL! On myspace, you get +3 cool points for choosing a retarded colour scheme with broken CSS, and on YouTube you get thousands of video views for posting "OMG guy gets hit IN THE BALLS! LOL!" or badly cut south park excerpts.

    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.