The New Digital Divide: MySpace vs. Facebook

A "blog essay" written this June got tech bloggers talking, and I just wanted throw in my two cents as a participant since 2004 in both. The essay, entitled "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace" by danah boyd, contends that Facebook is for the kids who are going to college with the money to do so and MySpace is for the kids who are lower-class outcasts:

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.

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.

This may be an extreme interpretation by boyd, but then again she's trying to make her point. Though she's looking at high school users, these differences may be more pronounced than for those a few years older like me who actually used both even at a time when Facebook was only for college kids.

I think most would agree such differences are inherent in the way the two sites started in the beginning. Facebook was geared for college kids, so it makes sense that Facebook still has a strong college-y connotation. This clean, more professional-ish image was also encouraged by the fact that you can't go graphically vomit on your Facebook page in the way that you can with Myspace (but that's changing do to all of those crazy apps).

On the other side, MySpace was geared toward Joe Anyuser so they could get as many people as possible on the site. Who else remembers a time when we were waiting to get our university added to Facebook ?! So already there was a sense of exclusivity with Facebook because back in the day you needed a valid college email to even create an account.

But not so anymore - I can see where there could be petty Facebook vs. MySpace issues in high schools where someone asks about a kid's MySpace profile and they say "Ugh yeah right - MySpace sucks. I'm on Facebook" (or even vice versa). I can see where social networking could be picked up as another way to make it us vs. them in terms of the cool vs. the outsiders like anything else, right next to what you wear, what music you listen to, etc.

Personally, I prefer Facebook for a variety of reasons, and I think most college kids would agree:

• no ads on my page (yet!!) unless I put them there in the form of groups and apps I add
• profiles that don't make my eyes bleed
• there's no server lag where I'm waiting forever to do something because I'm on during peak hours
• as of yet and as far as I know, phishers aren't stealing Facebook usernames and passwords. I've been burned twice by MySpace which ended up being embarrassing when everyone messaged me mad about the spam I had apparently been sending them through my account >.<

Note to Facebook: don't mess this up. You upset us when you let high schoolers join. You made it way worse with the stalker news feed. Admittedly, I'm a bit concerned about what will happen in terms of ads and corporate control when Facebook sells out. Will this be strike three?

Student Beware: is it time for you to do an internet audit before job searching?

While surfing Ars Technica, I found an article posted earlier this year called "Job Candidates Gone Wild: be careful what you post online," which I find extremely relevant as I draw closer to graduation. This is something all students should consider as they prepare to seek professional jobs and opportunities: if a hiring manager Googles you only to find your ridiculous Myspace page or your serial drinking binges and intoxicated escapades on Facebook, this is probably not going to help you (unless that's what your job calls for and in that case, good job!)

Be careful what you post online if you want to be able to get a job in the future. Your blog, web site, Facebook, MySpace, online dating profile, or even forum postings might "out" your salacious activities to a potential employer. According to a survey conducted by business social networking site Viadeo, one-fifth of hiring managers have used the Internet to find personal information about potential job candidates, and a quarter of those have rejected candidates based on what they found. - Jacqui Cheng, "Job Candidates Gone Wild"

So is this fair? This is an argument about public domain: if your crazy photos and epic rants are put out for all to see and read on a publicly accessible site, you should assume that this content is fair game when being considered for a job.

A good place to start would be to see what information you put out there on any social networking sites: if your Facebook page talks about your favorite books and movies that's probably not an issue (unless your employer HATES that movie :P ), but pictures and notes posted that detail your Friday night drunken debauchery may not be what they're looking for.

Another tip would also be to Google your name. Sure many people probably share your name (gosh, look at me - how many Megan Garzas are there!?), but see what comes up that may pertain to you. Example: Google "Megan Garza" and the first hit will be a link to my LinkedIn page that features resume-type facts and shows my list of connections of professionals that I know. This is definitely a preferable result when I think of a manager looking me up on the web.

I think that conducting an "internet audit" to see what pages feature you is an important step for those active on the internet. I took this to heart when I completely overhauled my former MySpace page. For years I had the typical layout but I realized over the summer that if someone searched for me on MySpace they would pull up my crappy page. I then found a clean, professional div-overlay to construct a simple yet very attractive page with minimal information - my page did not show my friends or the comments they left me. I was very proud of it until I recently found out that my account had been phished for the second time which finally convinced me to delete my account.

The moral of the story is that students should consider what they put on the internet in terms of how it will look to others who are considering you. If a resume and a nice suit for the interview is all a part of impression management, so are the pictures you post and the forums you participate in publicly on the web.

What about you all, my fellow classmates and readers? Any great examples?

10/4 Update: Hoi Polloi posted an entry today about investigations targeting employees who have posted ill-advised pictures on Facebook. A 20-year-old RA at OSU lost his job and had to move dorms because of some pictures that surfaced on Facebook featuring under-age drinking. Thanks for putting these examples together, Angelo.

Google Book Search allows users to share their bookshelves

Google Book Search offers users to catalog the books they have in their personal collections and organize them by category (which is a great way to keep track of what you’ve read and own!). Users can then share their collection pages with each other to see what their friends are reading.

According to Google’s Book Search page: You can now create personalized libraries on Google Book Search where you can label, review, rate, and of course, full-text search, a customized selection of books.

Google Book Search is also actively promoting its benefits for book publishers:

By matching the content in your books with user searches, Google Book Search connects your books with the users who are most interested in buying them.

Links to bookstores, online retailers, and your website make it easy for users to go from browsing to buying -- with new ways to buy and access your books coming soon.

A book link will also be featured that tells the reader where they can purchase the book online, which provides more traffic to online booksellers inspired by user-driven lists that can be searched and saved using RSS Feeds to your favorite list-makers.

Using Google Book Search can benefit PR professionals in the publishing industry by promoting its use to readers. Encouraging this book networking can lead readers to discover new books via lists made by friends, celebrities and featured users. Most importantly, it's already working to help authors and publishers based on their success stories.

MySpace also features a user-driven book search engine, but based off the top-rated books, it also seems to be more teen-centered - which would be significant to publishers in this market.

Learn more about Google Book Search here, and check out their blog to make your own book library to share with others.