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Let's pause a minute to reflect on the lessons of MySpace

A few years ago, there were a lot of arguments about MySpace. Most people hated it, but a lot of people with social media leanings would point to its exponential growth as a sign that it was here to stay; that its flaws didn't matter if so many people kept using it.

MySpace has now completely collapsed, being used only by the people who had built up enough community that they couldn't tear themselves away. The lessons?
  1. A bad product will always collapse. Now, MySpace could have used their large user base and improved, but they didn't. They just kept grabbing for more and more users and focusing only on advertising rather than quality. And it eventually killed them.
  2. Give users exactly what they want and they'll create a terrible product. Facebook has shown that resisting user's demands to have complete control over their own profiles means you can give them a consistent, usable product. They may want to put flashing pink backgrounds and ten concurrently-playing videos on their profiles, but it'll make the experience suffer for everyone.
  3. Most importantly, success today doesn't guarantee success tomorrow. You'd think this would be goes-without-saying obvious, but it's the "50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong" theory. Of course they can be wrong. Increasing numbers may mean success today, but they're no protection from failure.
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