MySpace's Days Seem to be Numbered (For Good This Time)

Let's face it. It's been a bad week for MySpace, and I mean a really bad week.

The troubles (well, troubles other than their steady decline over the years) started last Wednesday when MySpace announced they were cutting half of their staff.

Obviously that move signaled that the MySpace ship was sinking, and the very next day News Corp, who owns the site, hinted at what everyone had already assumed: They are looking to sell off MySpace.

So although the first social networking giant tried to upgrade itself back in October, it doesn't seem like their efforts paid off. The site has been hemorrhaging money and News Corp apparently can't justify keeping it anymore.

Now, this doesn't technically mean MySpace will go away, because whoever buys it could decide to try to revive it. But if MySpace's ROI (or lack thereof) is any indication, we could very well be seeing the last days of Facebook's forefather.

Facebook Friday: No, Facebook is Not Shutting Down

Some things in life just make you shake your head and question the Internet's collective user base. For instance, when a report from the Weekly World News claims that Facebook is shutting down in March...and people actually believe it!

Okay, for those of you who saw the story and frantically began to take down your Facebook photos to avoid losing them forever, let me enlighten you for a moment. If you take a gander at the page where the story started, you'll notice their other headlines. Gems like "Florida Secedes!" and "Walt Disney's Frozen Head Stolen!" are scattered around the web page.

So no, Facebook is not shutting down. Facebook is not even struggling. In fact, recent numbers show that the world's largest social network has passed the 600 million user mark.

And although I'm sure there will still be a few people panicking over the future of their Cityville and Mafia Wars games, it's safe to say that Facebook isn't going away anytime soon.

YouTube Not Ready to Give Up Video Crown, Triples Mobile Traffic in 2010

2010 was a pretty big year in the tech industry. But lost in the barrage of tablet news and the Great Android-Apple War was this interesting little tidbit: YouTube mobile viewership tripled in 2010.

The reason this is so surprising is that YouTube, while still hugely popular on the web, faces much more competition in the mobile video market. We've seen other video sites like Vimeo gain a lot of ground, as well as more video apps like Vevo.

Also consider the fact that streaming video subscription services have made huge strides, especially Hulu and Netflix. Okay, they may not be direct competitors, since Hulu and Netflix aren't user-generated content. However, it's still online/mobile video, and the more time users spend on subscribed streaming content like Hulu is less time that they're spending on YouTube.

The point is that a few years ago your only online video option was YouTube. And although that landscape has drastically changed over the past year, YouTube still managed to see huge growth in the mobile market.

This is also great news for content creators, because it demonstrates how multiple different mobile video channels are growing.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Lawsuits

It's been a couple months since I've covered a good blogger controversy, but the story that caught my eye today combines my passion of blogging with my love of photography.

What happened is that a popular photo blogger snapped a few photos while visiting the World Erotic Art Museum and posted them to Flickr. The museum was none too pleased by that, and subsequently threatened the blogger with a $2 million lawsuit.

At first glance, this seems like an extreme overreaction by the museum, but let's dive further into this case courtroom-style.

The prosecution (museum):

• The museum's curator stated that although photographers are allowed to take pictures, there's an unwritten agreement that the photos won't be posted online. The goal there is to protect children from seeing anything explicit.

• The blogger in question has had a history of causing trouble with museums and has a reputation for being confrontational, so a firm statement had to be made.

• The blogger was never given permission to take photographs.

• The museum is not necessarily looking to profit here, but is demanding a public apology from the blogger and compensation for legal fees.

The defense (blogger):

• The blogger states that the museum's complaint is that he violated their policy prohibiting professional photography, and he has not tried to profit from the photos. Furthermore, Flickr is defined as a non-commercial website. Therefore, the blogger didn't violate the policy.

• Unwritten/unspoken agreements like the one the museum mentions have little, if any, ground for a lawsuit. 

• While the museum claims the blogger wasn't given permission to take photos, the blogger claims he was in fact approached by a museum employee and given the go-ahead after being questioned briefly.

This is obviously an extremely messy situation. Both sides are claiming the other one is lying, and because nothing was signed or documented we probably won't know the whole story.

Personally, while I understand the museum is trying to position itself as a protecter of impressionable children, this types of blogger controversies rarely work out well for the party filing the lawsuit. That being said, the museum is most likely doing more harm to themselves than good.

Who Stands to Lose the Most from Quora's Explosive Growth? Quora

I've been using the Q & A site Quora for a few months now, and had even mentioned the site on Daily Axioms back in early December.

But over the past few weeks, numerous mentions in big name social media news sites have pushed Quora into the spotlight. This newfound fame has led to everything from a huge spike in new users to sites parodying its shortcomings. But either way, many pundits are wondering if Quora might be the "next big thing" in the social media universe.

And as a active user, I offer my own view on that very question: I sure hope not.

There are three main reasons why Quora shouldn't be happy about its explosive growth.

1. Logistics: Quora simply doesn't have the infrastructure to support the amount of new users they are getting, which has led to several crashes and spam attempts already. Obviously, those are all fixable problems, but Quora needs to patch things up quickly.
2. Steep learning curve: Many of the answers found on the site are a lot longer than 140 characters, and I even remember spending about 15 minutes working on an answer once. The problem is that the average user doesn't realize how active you have to be to get any use out of the site and quickly abandons it.
3. Alienating existing users: This is the biggest problem Quora will face in the coming weeks. Much of the site's charm revolved around the thought-out posts and internal code of conduct that the users shared. The flood of new users have troubled many of the existing users, creating a bit of an internal backlash. However, Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever wrote a post expressing his commitment to maintaining quality. Whether or not it will be effective has yet to be seen, but it is definitely a necessary step.

The bottom line is that I don't believe Quora is made for a Facebook or Twitter-like user base. It's not made to be the "next big thing" and I for one am just fine with that.