Facebook vs. MySpace III

This is part 3 of a 3 part series that started here and continued here.

User Friendliness

The most important part of any website is user friendliness. If it is not easy to use, most people probably won’t use it. The site must also be able to grow, and keep its users informed. It can be a culmination of everything I have already talked about, which is why I saved this post for last. From the first post of this series, I talk about how Facebook is much cleaner, with significantly less ads. They really put the user first. They have a blog, where all the developers can post what they are working on. And they respond to feedback. The best example of this is the Open Letter from Mark Zuckerberg (the facebook creator) he wrote in response to the uproar about the mini-feeds. Shortly after, they had fixes out for the feeds so you can control content. These are things you don’t see MySpace doing. If they have a blog, I can’t find it. You do see the occasional bulletin from Tom, but that is usually to say “If bulletins are being posted under your account that you didn’t post, change your password,” or “Sorry for the downtime.” And there is no archive for them. (Point of interest: Facebook has no spam or downtime.)

The second post in this series talk about add ons. Facebook this year alone has had so many. While I showcased some of them, there are a number I left out. MySpace hardly had any. This just shows that Facebook pays more attention to the user. They add things they think the users will like, and accept feedback asking what features users want to see, or what to change. I also mentioned Facebook uses the latest technologies like AJAX. This makes it much easier for the user, with less loading time and switching pages. The user can focus on browsing the site and not on waiting for the site to load.

As you can probably tell, Facebook really impresses me. The site is really well done and the communication from the development team is second to none. The ads aren’t in your face, and the user has a lot of control over content. Facebook, in my opinion, is the better of the two sites, and possibly the best social networking site out there. Let me know what you think in the comments. Later!

UPDATE: I just read this bulletin from Tom on MySpace:

Some of you may have noticed already–the photo count has been increased to 300! You can now upload up to 300 photos. Enjoy! Next week we’ll have albums so you can organize your photos. Enjoy and thanks to Warner Bros and 300 for making this possible!