“We don’t take kindly to your sorts around here”
MySpace: You can’t play in the sandbox with us!
Photobucket: Can too!
MySpace: No you can’t – it’s my sandbox!
Photobucket: But I want to play! And it’s my bucket!
MySpace: Take your bucket and find your own playground! Go away!
Photobucket: I’m not gonna!
MySpace: My dad is bigger than your dad!
Photobucket: Waaaaa! Waaaaa! Waaaa!
MySpace: You’re such a cry-baby.
So apparently MySpace told Photobucket to take a hike and find somewhere else to play. MySpace land is for MySpace people and not for strangers. The problem with this whole issue is that quite a few of the MySpace people also are Photobucket people. And alienating a large portion of the user base is not something to take lightly.
It is not like there is no alternative to the two sites. There are several sites out there that offer uploading, storing and sharing images. And not surprisingly MySpace is one of them. And new social networking sites spring up left, right and centre almost daily.
Photobucket has got 36 million registered users; MySpace is somewhere up in the 100 million plus range. Assuming that half of Photobuckets user base also have got a MySpace account then the number of shared accounts reaches 18 million. Assuming half of the people stay with MySpace and half with Photobucket the outcome looks grim for one of them. MySpace stands to loose 9 million accounts from the imagined scenario – something they would take in stride. Photobucket on the other hand stands to loose one quarter of their total user base. Not a fatal wound, probably, but a severe one nonetheless.
The above math is flawed. The number of shared accounts is taken out of thin air, and I have not taken into consideration the many people who will retain dual citizenship even after the content has been blocked. But flawed as it is, it is still clear who stands to loose the most on such an exclusion. Also, social networking sites are all about the people in them. And there MySpace is unparalleled by its sheer number of people. “Switching storage facility or abandoning friends?” is an easy question when asked that way.
When this story first appeared on Digg there were quite a few (rash) people to comment on not to bite the hand that feeds you. But who’s feeding whom in this case? Is it MySpace with its hundred million plus users; or Photobucket with its thirty-something millions? It’s not so much biting the hand that feeds you, as it is the hand that stopped feeding – biting suddenly seems like a viable option.
So is YouTube next? If MySpace is intent on following this line of blocking content in favour of their own services, then things could point in that direction for sure (and YouTube has even been blocked in the past). But I can’t see it happening though, and there are a few things speak in favour of my point of view. One is YouTubes size. YouTube is in the video sharing world what MySpace is in the social networking world: the name everyone knows. While blocking out services like Imeem, Revver and Photobucket has had little impact on MySpace numbers, the same would (most likely) not be the case if blocking out one of the few sites out there that are bigger than MySpace.
Then there is the other part of it: Money. In August 2006 Google coughed up $900m for the rights to provide search and advertising in MySpace. And in October the same year Google acquired YouTube for $1.65bn. As long as the deal between Google and MySpace stands, the services under the Google umbrella should be safe from harm.
6 comments:
Now if this article is right, the issue could be more serious for MySpace. But the same method could probably be used on Photobucket with much the same result...
It is an interesting issue that you raise. But "Assuming half of the people stay with MySpace and half with Photobucket"? You can't compare MySpace to Photobucket! MySpace is a social networking site, all Photobukcet does is host your images.
Regardless, I think it sucks to block content. Sounds too much like China. If you want to make your site a "closed" community, where there is no content from other sites, that's one thing, but to block certain providers, but not all - that's just wrong.
Apparently as an answer to this, Livejournal made it easier for people to use Photobucket when posting images(I might even conseder doing it in the future)
Livejournal-MySpace, 0:2.
Wouldn't that be Livejournal-MySpace 2:0?
*blushes* Of course you are right, dear, 0:2 is the Bayern München -AC Milan result that bothered me.
The trend to limit services not their own, that they don't make any money on directly, or aren't subsidised is growing. It'll fail in the long term, since half the reason MySpace and such grew is because they welcomed as much as possible as fast as possible. If they stop that, they'll stop the user-friendliness too, not to mention that while some wants the net to become more open, idiots like that push for closed circuits. It's all for profit, nothing else.
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