While many find it difficult to see a true distinction between social networks, it seems that two of the biggest social networks see a distinction in who they are and what they do:
- MySpace
Tim O’Reilly reports that “MySpace primarily thinks of itself as a media company.” As they follow Facebook’s lead, opening up its platform to outside developers, we will see if MySpace takes a different evolutionary path than Facebook. - Facebook
At the Web 2.0 Summit, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook underscored his focus on the social graph, not media. Tim O’Reilly’s explores the key choice that Facebook must make in order to live up to its mission: “Facebook’s granular control of what information you reveal and to whom is thus a key part of the platform — but the question is how far Facebook will go in letting other sites use this information. If Mark’s answer is the first, Facebook is ultimately a closed platform; if the latter, it becomes a true open platform and value enabler.”