(no subject)
Im starting to look at popular websites like a corporate boss would thinking about the most effective ways to get advertisements across to young kids. I realized when facebook made their first major change last year that the reason these sites are changing their layouts is to provide more ad space/more efficient ad space. Audioscrobbler used to not have ads before 2005. Now last.fm, since being sold to CBS, has all sorts of links by sponsors covering each page. Youtube was also bought out and features a bombardment of eyesore advertisements for stupid movies that no one should pay $12 to see. Myspace was smart and figured out a way to make all of their users see a full page of advertisements by making you have to click on the "home" button in order for you to navigate to your page. Facebook is now trying to be even smarter by eliminating almost all ads on the home page and putting information on the side bar, the trick being that everyone's profile now features advertisements and when you navigate to a profile page, your eye is already trained to look at the sidebar, right at the ads. I'm in no way condemning corporations for using sneaky tactics to get people to buy their products, if anything, i think it was a really smart move on their part and I'm not even much of a consumer so this really doesnt affect me anyway. The point im trying to make is look at the internet in 2004, and look at where it is now.
I remember last summer when i got really upset with last.fms new broken layout that took forever to load and had a ton of broken features. It was a downgrade in every possible sense and no one liked it. The developers pretty much left a big "fuck you" in their blog which pissed off a lot of people and many loyal users who had been on audioscrobbler since it was still called audioscrobbler closed their accounts in protest. Now on facebook my homepage is filled with invites to "1,000,000 strong for the old facebook layout" or whatever and tons of angry angsty people wanting the beloved old layout back. Facebook even did something really stupid by having a poll where people can vote if they like the new layout or not. Of course every single vote i have seen is in angry protest to the new layout but no one realizes yet that facebook doesnt care and it never will. Websites get popular and die out. Facebook may have just dug their grave by pissing off their community and have opened the door for another social networking site to sweep the hearts and minds of 14-20somethings or they could get away with all the extra bank they'll be making. The internet is a funny thing.