MySpace Evolves... Facebook games in court

Last week I posted some links to new security controls added to MySpace as part of a deal with 49 state legislatures.

Today I saw this article in the New York Times describing the push for MySpace to continue updating its site design and features as part of the ongoing push to keep at the head of the social networking sites pack: From MySpace to YourSpace by Brian Stelter

MySpace is in a funny position - many people (kids especially) like it because it's so easy to customize and MSM industries like it because its easy to use to promote products (especially music & video). But other users are leaving because they dislike the cluttered pages, anarchic social contacts and pushy marketing ("MySpace refugees," the article calls them).

With new security settings protecting kids and increased privacy controls on the horizon, will MySpace keep its loyal fanbase and draw in new users? MySpace's answer to keeping people engaged with their website has been more and more media content. But how long can they continue to compete with YouTube and the hordes of other video and music sites that provide content more flexibly and with more interactive features? The article mentions new celebrity content guides, but will that compete with IMDB and AllMusic.com, which are easier to browse and have giant databases of information?

Facebook, the lead competitor with MySpace in the U.S., tries to keep its users loyal by providing more and more content to keep them in the site. The "applications" approach has been a mixed bag - some people object to them as "cluttering up" the previously pristine profile pages, so they've added a way to minimize their appearance while you browse through your friends sites.

For the most part, though, their hands off approach to letting outsiders create content and add it to their website has been very successful. But how long will they keep up this approach? Scrabulous, one of the most popular apps on facebook (there are over 46,000 people using it to play "asychronous" games with friends) is facing challenges in court from Hasbro.

Will legal challenges force them to take a more direct role in managing the content on their site? Will their marketing strategies that rely on "word-of-mouth" connections between friends take off, or will people migrate to yet another new social networking site that hasn't been infiltrated by commerical interests?