I am becoming a Facebook hater. I use it, but I’m noticing that I never use it deeply. And an informal polling of friends suggests they do the same. My theory is that Facebook’s template/customization restrictions prevent people from ownership over their corner of the social network—and they feel the same way about their friends’ pages. Same goes for security. It’s nice that creeps and potential employers can’t view my profile, but it sucks that I can’t see the profile of my grade school boyfriend without “friending” him.
For all of Myspace’s drawbacks (customization led to incredibly annoying page designs, automatic audio playing, etc), my friends and I used it for hours at a time. We randomly surfed to new profiles, investigated photos, etc. This doesn’t seem to be happening on Facebook. And while some experts chalk this up to “social network fatigue,” I think it has more to do with the user experience on Facebook. Even though my community of friends and colleagues have migrated to the platform, it’s not as integral to socializing as Myspace once was. I think this leaves the door wide open for competing networks.
