10/01/2009

The Next Wave

With the advent of Google's new "personal communication and collaboration tool" Wave, some have been sounding the death knell for the leading social networks, Facebook and MySpace. Not quite.

As we see it, MySpace remains a destination for those who want to expose their music to a wider audience, since Facebook really does not fill that role. And unlike Friendster, which for all intents and purposes died a quick death immediately after the arrival of MySpace, the latter remains strong, despite operating at a reduced level than in its heyday. And since people love free music...

It seems to us, the vast majority of those who engage in social networking only care for the newest, most popular, most user friendly service to stay in touch with friends and family, and not the extra-curriculum features--music jukeboxes, merchandise sales, etc--of interest to musicians and other artists. So, with that in my mind one could deduce Wave to be much more of a threat to Facebook in that regard. What do you think?