Myspace concedes to Facebook, changes focus

Social Networking, is one of the factor that makes the current generation unique. Facebook, the representative of the culture has changed the way of communication through out the world. We can not only see famous celebrities with facebook but also politicians as well. Until Facebook rise in power, Myspace was the way. Recently, Myspace has been showing many efforts to compete with Facebook, the king of soc
 ial network.
 

Myspace, once a leader in social networking before the ascendancy of Facebook, is trading its social networking focus to target the music, celebrities, movies, television, and games that Gen-Y'ers love the most. The company announced on Wednesday that it is launching a beta site that will be based on this shifted focus.
"This marks the beginning of an exciting turning point for Myspace. Our new strategy expands on Myspace’s existing strengths—a deep understanding of social, a wealth of entertainment content and the ability to surface emerging cultural trends in real time through our users," said Myspace CEO Mike Jones in a statement.
The new site design is certainly a major improvement aesthetically, as Myspace has adopted a Windows Phone-esque tile view in addition to a complete rebranding (including dropping the capital 'S'). The layout is designed to emphasize discovery and sharing of favorite bands, actors, and more. Highly active users will be designated as "curators"—Myspace's parlance for tween and teen arbiters of taste. Users can also earn Foursquare-like badges that are displayed on their homepage or along with the content they share.
Myspace was acquired by News Corp. at the height of its popularity, which plummeted in subsequent years as Facebook became the top social networking site. Last year it eliminated one-third of its US staff and two-thirds of its international staff in an attempt to keep money from bleeding out as it continued to lose users.
The change in focus hones in on the areas where Myspace has been most successful—promoting bands and other celebrities to an increasingly young membership. That strategy won't ever put Myspace in the same running as Facebook for a wide audience, but it could prove successful enough to keep News Corp. from further regretting its purchase. Ars readers as a whole may longer care one whit about Myspace, but chances are your kids still do.

The social networking culture is not a joke or an amusement. Today, it has become one of the most powerful influence to the society which is a surprising and fascinating fact. But it seems like social networking does not have its limit, becoming even more and more significant as more people from all over the world is being involved. At this rate, social networking will surely influence the government and politics. This article also shows that the social networking sites are becoming more and more competitive. Is this the start of the social network war? We can only question for now.

Greener Facebook?

In Thomas L. Friedman's writting, Hot, Flat and Crowded, He scolds pollution and demands better environment for our future generation. This is another unique approach to his wish.

Environmental activist organization Greenpeace just won’t get off Facebook’s case for planning to invest in a data center facility that happens to be powered by “dirty coal-fired electricity.” The latest development is that the Greenpeace Executive Director Kumi Naidoo has sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking him to reconsider its planned facility in Prineville, Oregon, which uses power from Pacific Power. As evidence that Facebook SHOULD be interested in this issue, Naidoo points to the Facebook: Unfriend Coal page, which actually has close to 600,000 followers right now. Greenpeace appears to be wanting to guilt Facebook into reconsidering its position by pointing to what other huge forces in cloud computing are doing right:

“Other cloud-based companies face similar choices and challenges as you do in building data centers, yet many are making smarter and cleaner investments. Google, for instance, entered into a long-term agreement with a large wind power producer earlier this month. It has demonstrated that it is not only possible to prioritize the purchase of clean energy, but prudent as well.”

Facebook is something that symbolizes our flat world. If you have a computer and internet connection, talking to anybody in the world is no problem. Facebookis one of the cloud-based companies, very popular, having more than 500 million users. Facebook using a dirty coal electricity is in fact shocking and unexpected since the main trend of the day is "eco-friendly". If Facebook goes by Greenpeace's suggestion, this would be a great advance, knowing that Facebook is a huge company.