Do you love throwing sheep? Is poking your friends the best part of your day? Tom Anderson, president of MySpace would answer these questions with a categorical no! In a rare act of public communication, the president of the 600 pound gorilla of social networking laid out some rules for MySpace application developers. The rules includes governance over how people are invited to adopt applications and rules around incentivizing apps.
Tom states the following,"Balancing the needs of a community is never an easy job. There are many constituents, all with their own needs and desires. The needs of the few cannot outweigh the needs of the many."
My Proposition
Why not put some of the governing power in the hands of the community?
One only needs to look at the success of Wikipedia to know that the wisdom of crowds is a very powerful thing. If MySpace is in fact a "community" why not set up a trusted board of members and developers (perhaps let the community vote on them). Let them be part of the approval process for applications and other pieces of the platform. I am not advocating MySpace let users entirely run the show, but why does MySpace not take on a more transparent, collaborative stance on the community.
I have to be honest, I see MySpace as a sinking ship. I do however think that if MySpace were to make some radical moves they could turn things around.
I am not holding my breathe.
I have become increasingly disillusioned with both Facebook and MySpace, as they do not embody the true essence of community. Sure, I understand they have revenue goals and they are not charities, but I think it is time to stop referring to these networks as communities and start calling them what they really are, services (and businesses).
Tags: myspace, facebook, tom anderson, wikipedia, apps