MySpace killed the website star

First let me say that my website is by no means a top tier site. I don't even get enough traffic to have an Alexa traffic ranking. However, I think that there is still something to be said about having your own website instead of just a MySpace or Facebook presence.

Back in the '90s having your own website was a geek badge of honor. 10 years ago it was unlikely that if you asked ten 16 year-olds to give an html tag that more than a couple would have been able to. Now, it is probably likely that most 16 year-olds would know at the very least the ‹a href› or ‹img› tags.

While both MySpace and Facebook don't require you to know any html, your options on how you can design your page are limited to the protocols they have established. While it may be possible that I could have the very same content that I have on this site on MySpace, I would have to abide by certain rules. It's not that I have any profane content (or profound for that matter) on my site. But, at the end of the day there is no doubt who owns the content. Furthermore, the format of your content is limited to certain parameters. I could some formating that is similar to this site but I wouldn't have nearly the same flexibility. I have options that Facebook and MySpace don't offer like having an RSS feed, the option of having a fully featured web forum, and the option of getting paid for ad impressions.

So if you aren't interested in the aforementioned items why is this a big deal? For me I think there is something to be said about taking the time to create your own code and understanding how the code in the background creates your end product. Now, to be fair I didn't write every single line of code on this site. But, I do know it well if that if I am having a problem with something or want to make an improvement I can. At the end of the day it probably comes down to site traffic and ease of use. If everybody you know is using Facebook or MySpace why wouldn't you. It's a lot easier to communicate with people when they all use the same interface. You don't have to bookmark the sites of all your friends, those applications do it for you. I know this first hand as I have a Facebook account and I use it to talk to some of my friends that maybe I otherwise would not. While I wish they would all come to this site and chat I know that will probably never happen.