Why MySpace is like a Nokia 5190

I have a MySpace Account and a (new) Facebook account. Before setting up Facebook I honestly had lost all hope in social networking. MySpace is such a wasteland of animated gifs, 2000-pixel wide images, and broken sound files. It is unfettered customization run amok. Facebook is the exact opposite. The basic functionality is the same but the interface is so much cleaner.

If you give me the option of "pimping" my MySpace account I will probably do it. However I don't have particularly good taste and I am not a professional CSS designer.

This leads me to why MySpace is like a Nokia 5190. You remember the 5190 right? It was that ubiquitous brick phone that also happens to be my first cell phone. It was one of the earliest phones to offer interchangeable faceplates. The "factory" faceplates were pretty tasteful in a few bright colors. However the market was soon flooded with cheaply made, retina burning designs available at every mall kiosk.



Have you noticed that most new cell phones no longer offer interchangeable faceplates? The closest you can get is one of the limited stock color options. This is a good thing. It's like new cars. They don't let you pick out your new Honda with a shoddily painted 49ers logo in hot pink slapped all over the place.

To make a long story longer, Facebook is rad. It lets you (wisely) customize your content and the location of widgets but it doesn't let you directly customize the primary layout and CSS.

In summary, go sign up for Facebook and look me up. I need more friends.

P.S. Simon... thanks for pushing me to sign up. You win. It is better than MySpace.