Where is MySpace News going?

Stephen Withers
Monday, 23 April 2007 13:59

Your IT - Home IT

I'd hoped that all those zillions of MySpace users would have been busy over the weekend voting for news stories, but apparently they've got better things to do.

On reflection, that's probably a good sign - they were probably all working, studying, playing, dancing, partying and so on. In other words, they've got real lives.

It isn't such good news for MySpace, though. Without peer-rated stories, what does MySpace News have to offer that Google News doesn't? Not a lot, I suggest.

I just checked the site, and the seven articles featured on the front page had attracted just 3, 2, 3, 1, 3, 1 and 1 votes. And only one story (not coincidentally, the only one that I'd call news) came from what most of us would regard as a recognised news outlet - the rest are from blogs.

So I checked some of the departments, and things didn't get much better. Only one story filed under Internet Tech had been voted on, and one story had nothing at all to do with the Internet.

How about the Apple section? No votes at all, but maybe that's a demographic thing. The stories were generally relevant if not all newsworthy or particularly interesting - at least not in my opinion.

One last try: General Music. 15 stories, no votes. OK...

Something's going wrong here. Perhaps MySpace News isn't finding the stories that would interest its users and that's why they're not voting. Maybe they're just not interested in news. Or - and I find it hard to believe this is the case when so many people in the MySpace demographic vote for competitors on Big Brother or Australian/American/Pop Idol - perhaps they're too apathetic to vote.

I prefer to think they're all too busy. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this subject, so if you've got a moment and you're not too apathetic, post a comment and share your opinion.