The Stomping of MySpace

By 2006 only three years after its creation, MySpace was the most visited website for both The United States and the world. This popularity was short lived as Facebook quickly dominated any online competition with its massive following.

Total lack of both adaptability and innovation: When their numbers started to decline nothing really changed. The website's layout which was already too complex for its own good never underwent any major changes until its ownership actually did something. NewsCorp's management can be seen as a contributing factor to this as the staff had little interest in investing money back into the site. This seemed to be the direct opposite of Facebook's policy as they were undergoing dramatic changes on a somewhat regular basis and regularly investing for long term growth. Another contributing factor to this was that Facebook had decided seek outside help for designing apps that created a new level of interaction with users.

How bad was NewsCorp's gamble to cash in on the social networking boom? Well in 2005 MySpace was bought for $580 million. It was then sold in 2011 for only $35 million.

Facebook on the other hand seems to be only gaining more popularity. It's closest competition is now Twitter and Linked In, both of which don't offer near as many features as Facebook does. The site is continually under going upgrades, most recently the "timeline" feature streamlines uploads into a more organized photogenic way.

Despite the disappointment of Facebook's move public the site continues to grow, surpassing 1 billion users in October of 2012. During its growth, Facebook has also made a continual effort to buy up companies that offer features that Facebook did not already have, such as the purchase of photo sharing app, Instagram in April of 2012.

With an ever growing number of tools such as instant messaging, video calls, market place, photo timeline, and groups in addition to an ever growing number of businesses that place themselves on the site, Facebook seems to be avoiding any fate similar to MySpace... for now.

Communication leaves Transportation

For the majority of human existence communication was tied directly to the efficiency and speed of transportation. Today, they have almost nothing to do with each other but backtrack to the 1800’s and geography was the primary antagonist to any form of communication over long distance. The invention of the Telegraph in the 1830’s changed all of this and laid the foundation for the current networks of digital communication that exist today. 

 

In the United States, confidence grew quickly in the new device following several successful demonstrations by Samuel Morse in 1844. Lines quickly spread across the country and rapidly grew from only 40 miles of cable in 1846 to 23,000 in 1852.

On October 24th 1861, the first transcontinental cable was established connecting the East and West coasts. The effects of this were immediate as demonstrated by the closing of the famous Pony Express only two days later.

The transcontinental cable also played a role in the 1861 election of President Lincoln. Union officials were eager to give Nevada statehood prior to the election, as Lincoln was the favorite. Believing that they would not have time to send the state constitution by train to Washington to be ratified, they sent it by telegraph. This was for 17 years the longest transmission ever sent by telegraph and took two full days to send.

 

 

The network grew globally as well. The first continually successful transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1866 and connected North America to the United Kingdom. This cable had the ability to transmit up to eight words a minute, which was a dramatic improvement over the ten days it would take a ship to make the journey.

 

The ability to send time sensitive information over long distances prior to it becoming historic changed many industries. Trade in particular was impacted as “near real time” information on stock prices was able to be transmitted and received by brokers thanks to the invention of the Ticker Tape machine by Tomas Edison in 1869. This increased both the speed at which trades were performed and the accuracy of particular quotes.

Journalism was another industry that had to heavily adjust to the Telegraph.  Since only a few cables ran from place to place, newspaper companies could no longer rely on their own reporters to gather and transmit information on stories, as it would be too much information for the cables to handle. The solution came in the form of cooperation as five daily newspapers located in New York City were attempting to cover the Mexican-American War. The result of this cooperation was the formation of the first wire service which would eventually become the now well known Associated Press. Due to both the speed at which transmissions could now be made and the small format they were confined to, the style of writing had to be changed. This necessitated a shift from the linear form of writing that involved a beginning, middle and end to a reverse pyramid style (5 W's) that we still sometimes see today.