Facebook and MySpace, what does being the "winner" mean?

"Clearly, the world eagerly embraced MySpace, but as the average person has adopted social networks, where they come to first is making connections with the people they already know.  "Facebook has done an excellent job of capitalising on that."

  Brett Brewer, co-founder of InterMix Media, the company that developed MySpace.

I've never been a fan of MySpace. That's not because I felt there was a problem with the service. I don't. Depending upon what you think it's for, it works just fine. And that's the point. What is it for?

If we view social networking as a single thing, then every social network competes with every other social network. (In the general sense that everything competes for attention, there's some truth to that. That observation, however, isn't particularly helpful, so I'm going to ignore it.) If we view social networking as a category we come to some different conclusions.

As I've endlessly repeated, all we're doing with the internet is creating reflections of ourselves. Yes, it's true that there are aspects of virtual space that offer creative potential as we articulate the many aspects of our individual and social selves, and you might even say there's an element of self-discovery in it, but that is essentially what is happening. Social networking is a reflection (more or less creative) of our social selves manifesting in virtual space.

I've used phrases such as "nothing more" and "all we're doing" as if the process were something other than profound. I don't mean to trivialize any aspect of it. Personally, I find it endlessly engaging.

But here's the point: surely, there's more to our social selves than the exchange of status information. What Facebook is winning is the battle for that aspect of our social selves associated with the exchange of status information with "friends". When I look at my life I see more types of engagement, more relationships, than are represented by the activities, by the exchange, offered by Facebook. 

This is far from a criticism of Facebook. Status updates, what I tend to think of as "what's up" networking, may well be the most pervasive form of engagement. And that is why I believe they have such huge adoption. Said otherwise, in the category of social networking, they are dominant in the element we might call "general status updates between friends" -- for lack of a more official sounding, possibly Latin, label. If MySpace wants to duke it out with them for dominance of that "niche" good luck to them. Personally, I think there's another niche with their name on it.

I believe there are more Democrats in America than Boy Scouts. Does that mean that the Democrats have beaten the Boy Scouts? If the Boy Scouts try to field a candidate for public office, I suspect the Democrats would have the stronger position between the two of them. Do the Dallas Cowboys, compete with the Boston Celtics? I have to admit that might be entertaining -- once or twice.

Obvious? Perhaps. But when I see major social networks adding status update services when it seems obvious that activity has little to do with the social need they are serving, I have to wonder if Facebook envy won't be the death of them -- or if they'll succeed despite themselves.