MySpace dies. Who's next?

News Corp. sold MySpace today for nearly 545 million less than the company originally bought the once booming social media site for in 2005.

Ouch.

But it makes you think. When purchased in 2005, MySpace had approximately 27 unique monthly users, making it the fifth most visited website in the world. Even in the past year alone, Compete.com shows the social networking site's numbers decreasing by more than 35 million unique monthly visits.

So who's next? The fads come and go, as we know. Today, Facebook has more than 500 million active users, Twitter gets an average of 460,000 new users every day and Foursquare boasts more than 7 million users and counting. But as an active tweeter, even I admit that as I'm using Twitter more, I'm using Facebook less. Communication is becoming more and more concise, and as we continue to evolve as social communicators, someone is going to get left in the dust along the way.

So let's compare. With MySpace, users have unlimited capabilities to personalize profiles, adding their own individualized html coding to change colors, formatting and even a certain degree of animation. Users can add songs, pick their top friends and write unlimited amounts of information about themselves. In other words, the sky is the limit.

But as much as our culture is all about self expression, we're impatient, resistant to change and absolutely dependent on the connections we surround ourselves with. With Facebook, users know exactly what they're getting when they visit a page - Wall, Info, Photos, Videos, etc. What's more, users have the ability to connect with "friends" through more than just a friend request or wall post - we can tag pictures, tag posts, tag videos and view status updates in a clear concise format. No searching, no surprises.

And now with Twitter, more and more individuals worldwide are finding 140 characters to be just the right size for what they have to say, allowing followers to filter through information at a faster rate. We no longer need to communicate in full sentences - a simple hashtag will do.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Twitter surpasses Facebook users in the next five years, although I do see there being a limit to Foursquare due to the general public's privacy issues.

What do you think?

Always,
j.cole (social media nerd)