Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes

For all of us in the echo chamber MySpace looks like a not-so-easy way to create a crude webpage about oneself. To add to that, MySpace’s site performance has been getting worse and worse at least from what I can see from my account (yes, I have one… we’ll get to that in a minute). Why is this site so popular? Well, as we all know, MySpace built an early beachhead and have kept those users loyal through MySpace’s social network. There is one thing that I actually like and that I don’t see in new social applications like VOX though. MySpace gives users the ability to search the database by high school and college.

So, why did I start a MySpace page when I already have a perfectly good blog (yes, I know that’s debatable)? Well, I headed back to Boston a few months ago to spend some time with family and friends as well as to attend the Podcast Academy at Boston University. One night after attending the academy all day I headed over to one of my friends apartments. He had invited over some some guys that I hadn’t seen since my move to Chicago and some that I hadn’t seen in a number of years. To my surprise, the first thing they said to me was: “Hey, I couldn’t find you on MySpace!” They proceeded to ask how a guy that is “so into the internet” could not have a MySpace page. I tried explaining that my blog comes up as the 5th result on Google for my name but that was a no go. I then realized that it wasn’t that they couldn’t find me, they could find me if they wanted but they couldn’t search for me based on schools and that is important, at least for people my age since most people can’t easily be found on Google (i.e. they wouldn’t think to look there for me).

I gave in and set up a MySpace page when I got back to Chicago a few days later. Ever since I have been getting in contact with long lost friends and even not so long lost friends. It’s really great to get back in touch and see what everyone has been up to since I last saw them. In fact, I found out one of my high school friends had ended up in Chicago as well and we are able to connect the other day and catch up which probably wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for MySpace.

Now, to VOX. Since VOX (SixApart’s new product – see my VOX blog) is still in “beta” mode and many of you have probably not had a chance to play with it I will give you a quick run down. Basically, VOX is a blogging application with social networking built in. VOX is incredible in the sense that you really don’t need to know any code to get your blog up and running, to insert media into your posts (tied in with YouTube, Amazon, Flickr, etc.), to add books to your side rail, etc. With VOX truly anyone can blog. VOX has also included some nice features like allowing posts to only be seen by friends and/or family which is, of course, a page taken out of the Flickr book. The blogging part of the application is great and it should definitely get some more people blogging. The social side of VOX, however, still needs a little something in the way of search.

I enjoy the social side of VOX in general. It is very Flickr like. However, I think it lacks the basic search function that has caused MySpace to flourish. Right now, VOX allows you to search for other people on VOX but the search can’t be done by school or other important pieces of data. I hope that VOX will eventually include such search criteria because it would be very helpful to users and would make VOX a little more sticky. I know I will definitely start getting my friends more into VOX as soon as the search function gets some needed upgrades. Most likely they’ll want to make switch!