Social bookmarks, communities, web 2.0 stuff, all this is nice but when it comes to choosing a community there’s one main site out there, MySpace, a lot of teens and even some adults have profiles there (myself included) and they think that it’s one of the best social communities out there.
Well there are other choices and one that I believe is on par but may not be seen as such is flickr. Now when you read that you’ll probably say to yourself, “flickr is a photo site, why would it be like MySpace?”. Herein is where it’s not that obvious, what can you do on MySpace? View profiles, view friends, view pictures, send messages and post comments pretty much is all it’s used for. Let’s compare a few things, starting with what you see when you view yourself on MySpace and flickr:
MySpace
flickr
Which looks better to you and less ad infested?
Now onto viewing your friends/contacts, let’s take a look again:
MySpace
flickr
Once again, which is more pleasing to look at? Just looking at the flickr contacts gives you they’re alias, they’re real name (if applicable), and their location, way more than MySpace gives you, that just gives you their diplay name kinda boring.
Now, in the MySpace contacts you can click on their name and picture and it takes you to their profile, where you’d have to click again to see all (12 pfft) pictures at most they posted of theirself and maybe a pet. But with flickr you can either go to their profile (I’ll cover next), or see all their photos which have no limit and no specific subject and most people post pictures of themselves on flickr.
Next let me cover profiles, this is a big one, now most idiotic MySpace users (the picture below is not one of them, just an example) make these horrible themes with falling objects blinking .gif backgrounds and horrible bright colors that make you want to have a seizure. On flickr everything is unified and nobody stands out from anybody else (this isn’t communism ;)), but instead you can put what you want people to see in a nice, readable page. Take the examples below:
MySpace
flickr
Now Caitlyn’s profile (on MySpace) is a better one than most of the ones I’ve seen, not meaning to pick on her especially.
Next thing that a lot of MySpace users do is send messages to one another. Now while both are very simple and easy to do, you still with MySpace get the ads and the awkward color scheme (the darkish blue with white and some red), examples:
MySpace
flickr
Pictures. MySpace users (majority) all have 12 slots of their pictures of whatever they want, mostly people put pictures of themselves and occasionally pets, friends, family, etc. With flickr though you have an unlimited (except for bandwidth) amount of photos you can put up, ranging from pictures of a car to a photo of aunt dawn, your choice. Plus with flickr you can have your photos organized into “sets” which could be things like family, friends, etc whatever you want, and the way the photos are presented flickr clearly takes the cake:
MySpace
flickr
Final thing for me, comments - these are big on MySpace that people post bulletins begging for them on pictures and their profiles, it sometimes gets annoying.
I’m not even going to highlight MySpace on this one because I believe the way flickr does it wins no matter what.
Now, to wrap everything up, my personal opinion is that flickr is just as good of a community for users as MySpace is, and the only reason I stay on MySpace is that most of my friends around here don’t know anything else.
Based on everything I’ve highlighted I’d have to say flickr comes out on top for me as one of the best community type sites.
Feel free to add me on either MySpace or flickr:
MySpace: Profile
flickr: Profile
I was about to write a post on this, you beat me to it.
I’ve been kinda frustrated with some of my friends who’ve been using Flickr like MySpace, I view it as a photo site, not a networking site at all, I guess I must be blind somewhere.
Great article, I never even though about Flickr like that. I mean, Flickr has more substance if anything than myspace, which is really just a limited version of Flickr with less focus on photos and far more users.
By the way, I was curious–for your video blogs do you use the MacBook’s built-in microphone? I’ve found that you have much less feedback, or ‘whooshing air-background noise’ than I do when I record with the iSight camera and the built-in mic on my iMac Core Duo.
[Comment ID #5227 Will Be Quoted Here]
Yes I always use my MacBook’s camera and microphone, I <3 them.
Any idea why mine doesn’t sound as silent? It’s really bugging me
[Comment ID #5231 Will Be Quoted Here]
What Rev is your Intel iMac? I have no idea, maybe it’s got something blocking it so when you’re talking it’s vibrating the object, honestly I don’t know you should ask Apple.
Rev A., 20-inch. I called them last night, they suggested turning the input level down (durr…) but it’s still audible…I’m really pissed off. I think it’s because the mic’s located right in front of the fan, and it’s not isolated at all, which is stupid.
What is your input level set to, Larry?
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whoa! mine is quite un-listenable set to that level, and where the heck is that use ambient noise reduction setting?
In System Preferences -> Sound
that’s not there for me, that ‘reduce ambient noise setting’! i don’t get it!
Heh, I wanted to Digg this, but they said that “This URL has been reported by users and cannot be submitted at this time.” :/
But IMO, I hate MySpace. Flickr is okay, and I agree with the points up there, but I still don’t completely agree with using them as an “all about me” site. I like being able to maintain my own website and making it look, work, and feel exactly the way I want it to.
You should be comparing MySpace to FaceBook as Flickr is much more of a photo album rather than a way to connect with friends.
[Comment ID #5246 Will Be Quoted Here]
When you think about this yes, but really what is MySpace? It’s a place to comment on users’ profiles and pictures, and listen to music. Flickr lets you do everything but listen to music, but if you think about it, they almost possess a like core. The big gap of course is the music though, as fan’s of bands being able to legally put their favorite bands’ music on their profiles, and become ‘friends’ with them is a big popularity factor for MySpace.
You forget YouTube!
Anyone else having bother with myspace or is it just my pc?
Last couple of days it seems it wont let me download any song from anywhere.
Anyone having same bother - or anyone how to sort it?