May 11th, 2007
MySpace launches 'Take Down Stay Down'; Facebook does classifieds; MySpace: Microsoft's biggest competitor?
In Focus » See more posts on: MySpace
The social web weekly: a quick-fire roundup of some of the news, announcements and conversations that have occurred throughout the week…
- MySpace launches 'Take Down Stay Down'. MySpace video has implemented new technology it's calling 'Take Down Stay Down' which uses filtering to stop users re-posting copyrighted material that has already received a take-down notice. This seems to address one of the biggest complaints by content companies, in which users upload new copies of infringing material, quicker than their legal teams can issue take-downs. The move also puts more pressure on YouTube, which has yet to address this problem.
- Facebook does classifieds. Facebook is to launch its own classified ads service, later today. In some ways the move turns Facebook into a competitor to other web-based free classified services such as Craigslist. However, as Scott Karp rightly points out, closed social networks, like Facebook, have a real advantage when delivering certain kinds of classifieds: "Imagine the impact this could have on housing ads, such as searching for a roommate. Neither Craigslist nor newspapers can compete with prospective roommates being able to size each other up based on their Facebook profiles."
- MySpace: Microsoft's biggest competitor? In a panel discussion at the Software 2007 Conference, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, argued that Microsoft's biggest threat is MySpace, not Google. From InformationWeek: "Social networks, said Levchin, are becoming operating systems in the sense that they create consumer lock-in through control of user data. And just as Microsoft dominated the desktop in the '80s and '90s, he expects social networks to dominate in the years to come." It's certainly true that social networks create their own kind of lock-in, either technically, or purely due to network effects. It only makes sense to move elsewhere if everybody else does. And it's also true that MySpace has done the least to support open standards or any kind of data portability. Having said that, people move networks or try out new services all the time — not like operating systems.
Steve O'Hear is a London-based consultant, educator, and journalist, focussing on the Internet and all aspects of digital technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
