Facebook outclasses MySpace ?

You can't make this stuff up...not only do social networks have the dream dynamics of teens, sex and pervs, rock n roll - and sockpuppets of course - we now have...a class and a race issue too......

Danah Boyd has studied Facebook and MySpace over the last six months, and come to the astounding conclusion that Facebook is full of college kids and MySpace is....not.

Now who would have thought that; considering Facebook started off as a network for college kids and only really opened its doors to les autres not much more than 6 months ago, whereas MySpace was colonised at least 2 years ago by all those school kids who like music, friends and garish virtual bedroom walls - in other words, normal teens - in their thousands?

Apparently not any more, MySpace is now the haven for the "bad kids", the dispossessed, the underclass......to quote:

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

Quite....

So, where have all the good teens gone? Gone to Facebook, every one apparently:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

And what of all those ordinary teens who are not preppies and not the underclass.....is there a virtual home for them - is Bebo their promised cyberland, or maybe even Friendster?

(Actually, from my empirical observation Facebook is mainly being colonised by the Linked In Meedja crowd anyways....)

Of course, there is a possible alternative explanation - ie that MySpace has allowed itself to become overcommercialised, bought by Big Meedja, is full of PR and marketing pervs, has had 2 years of Socnet bad rap in the mainstream media, and that its now soooo 2006 and all the people are going off to the new, bright, shiny one over yonder (with a design format that is the direct antithesis of MySpace - for now, anyway)....and you still see mainly college kids on Facebook 'cos it was all college kids a few months ago?

Read the article, it is thought provoking albeit it would be more interesting to see where they stand a year from now...drawing these conclusions from studying Facebook just after it opened its college doors is a bit too early methinks.

On the subject of design formats, AOL has redesigned its format to be cleaner, more in line with the simple lines of blogs - like broadstuff - and facebook. Could this move from MySpace thus be more something like a change in group taste than teen turbulence per se ?