social networking 2.0

Today facebook launched two new features, a News feed and a “mini feed.” For those unfamiliar with the service (where have you been hiding?), Facebook is a closed community that was originally only open to college students. By requiring a .edu email address, they were able to screen for students, alumni, or faculty. It has since been opened to high schools and other bodies, but it remains much more focused than myspace.com and the other biggies.

With the exception of myspace.com, whose stubborn refusal to make their site attractive drives me up the wall, many social networking sites have entered the web2.0 movement. Myspace, which recently inked a deal with Google Adsense to monetize their site, is one the last big sites dependent on banner style ads. When it isn’t down or so slow that it’s unusable, a visitor is confronted with at least one big banner on every page. Everytime you go click a link the page changes, the ad changes and the pageview goes up a tick. These pageview counts are quoted to the advertiser as their exposure rate. But thanks to ajax and RSS feeds site loading time and bandwidth needs are reduced, while users are exposed to more content without reloading. There’s an article about why pageviews are no longer relevant for this very reason but I can’t find the link to save my life. So why are sites ok with this? Isn’t myspace the de facto standard? Maybe not anymore.

Facebook, headed by Mark Zuckerberg, now offers a “news feed” that tells you everything your friends have done recently. Instead of browsing to each profile, your news feed tells you that Steve broke up with Jenna, Andy uploaded new pictures, and Conrad wrote a new emo blog/note. While this means that Facebook will have less pageviews because users don’t have to leave their home page to get updates, the increased visitor loyalty will probably go through the roof. TechCrunch is running a piece on these new features with some screenshots for those of you without a key to Facebook’s walled garden.

When Facebook first made itself known, I opened an account and begin searching for friends. It was fascinating to see where your high school friends ended up, and then be able to leave them “notes” on their wall. When the novelty died down, Facebook followed through with the ability to add pictures. A couple weeks ago, they also introduced an API to allow developers to build software which can interface with Facebook’s database of users. Meanwhile Myspace is still exactly like it was before Fox News Corp bought it for 500 million, except that there are more fake profiles, annoying advertisements, and cam girls. You’d think 500 million could have paid for new ideas, faster servers or maybe some security analysis could have protected them from the onslaught of sexual predator fears after it was revealed that anyone could view private profile comments and photos.

Popular designers like Derek Punsalan and Keegan Jones have gone out of their way to develop profiles that minimize Myspace’s hideous layout. You can view Derek’s DIV overlay download, or just check out what other myspace people have done to turn down the ugly.

While Facebook doesn’t allow its users to customize their profiles, they are well ahead of the curve for usability and features. Will myspace’s inflexibility and horrible connection be enough to bring the giant to its knees? You tell me.