This is soooo long overdue. Looks like Myspace contracted Adaptive Path to redesign one of, if not THE ugliest popular social networking site on the web. What a feat for these guys. They blogged about some of the project challenges (See: Rethinking Myspace, Myspace & Creative path, The Shelf-life of Social Networks) but in the end, it seems as though the redesign turned out to be one big Facebook BITE. According to Valleywag.com, “When Fox Interactive began interviewing Web designers for the job last fall, they told the candidates the main goal was to match rival Facebook feature-for-feature.” See more screenshots here, where it looks like they are also biting Youtube for their media player.

I really don’t understand the logic, Myspace. Users left Myspace for Facebook because it offered better features and because it was “the NEW” thing about a year ago. Who’s going to go back to Myspace when they aren’t offering anything new? Doesn’t make sense to me. In my opinion Myspace should be upping the ante and giving their users better, faster, and stronger features along with the new design. That just seems like a basic principal of competitive business to me. Look at Google/Gmail, they gave us a GB of email space for free while the standard was only 10-20MB. Then again, I don’t get paid 6 figures to do the research on this type of thing, so maybe I’m missing something. Either way, I don’t think Facebook has anything to worry about, especially since Facebook is also making some design improvements that I think are pretty decent.

I know it sounds like I’m all for Facebook, but don’t worry I am still thinking about deleting my account.

It looks like Facebook is turning the profiles into a Psuedo Blogging/Aggregating system. Cool idea, but I already have a real blog for that. And my blog is way cooler. Especially because I can change my design whenever I want and there are no Apps/Ads. I also have a built in instant messager (messenger?), A photos page with thumb nailed albums(still need to start using this), and people can leave me comments(wall posts) on any thing they want. Why do I even bother with Facebook? This definitely hits a few notes on my earlier post about Facebook users evolving to use their own personal blogs. Time will tell.

…Delete your Facebook account now and stop generating page views and advertising revenues for someone else.

…The only way to really stand out on Facebook is to have nothing to do with it…

Read the full article here.

I couldn’t agree with him more but I don’t know if I have the guts to delete my acount just yet.

Ever since Facebook opened itself up to the public and introduced Apps I have noticed an unsurprising demise in how I interact with my friends on the site. Before Apps and public Facebook I used to have Facebook open ALL DAY looking at Photos, making Wall Posts, responding to Inbox messages, changing my Status — Everything. It used to be important to make my presence known on the site and finding subtle ways to do it. Before, I had the comfort of knowing people that I actually keep in touch with were the main people who would see my information.

Now things are completely weird and awkward on Facebook. I find myself spending more time hiding from people on Facebook than I do socializing with them. And its not so much that I’m trying to avoid people I no longer talk to. It’s more so about limiting what people I DON’T know can know about me. I don’t want the Art Director from my last freelance project seeing where I went for vacation last year and How I got way too drunk at that House party (This really almost happened by the way). Facebook has tons of privacy settings that limit what people can know about you, but you also have to spend TONS of time trying to figure out what settings do what.

Also, Apps are extremely ANNOYING. To this day I don’t understand why I have so many friends with pages loaded with complete CRAP…Here’s a list of 10 ridiculous Facebook Apps. I don’t know what any of these Apps do, but the names alone are enough reason to hate them.

1. Will You Kiss Me? Facebook App
2. Free Condoms Facebook App
3. Whats your grade in the bedroom? Facebook App
4. How Gangsta Are You? Facebook App
5. What Drug Are You? Facebook App
6. My Sexy Costume Facebook App
7. Puff Puff Pass Facebook App
8. Have Sex! Facebook App
9. Booze Mail Facebook App
10. Lick My Frog Facebook App

(All of these are actual Facebook Apps. Im not making these up. In fact everyone of them came from 1 person’s profile.)

Ashley believes the blogosphere is where all of us Facebook haters should go, which would be great for business. Not sure everyone will be into the technical stuff of blogs, but setting up blogs on Blogspot (which comes with Gmail automatically) or WordPress.com is free and easy as pie. Guess we’ll see what happens over the next couple of years.