MySpace vs. Facebook (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog)

I just searched Google News for MySpace and Facebook, and was surprised at the difference in what I found. Of the first seven MySpace hits, five emphasized criminal acts, and two were PR-driven pieces.

Of the first seven hits on Facebook, only one involved legal worries (in an item that also included MySpace in the title), two items seemed PR-driven, and the other four were news features that included references to Facebook organically (through a profile of the Facebook founder, or a high school paper article about the online community).

Facebook is still owned by its boy-geek founder, while MySpace was recently bought out by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorporation (which also owns Fox, TV Guide, and HarperCollins). Of course this is not a scientific survey, but MySpace was referred to over 12,000 times in Google’s news database, while Facebook appeared only about 3000 times. Given that MySpace has about 80% of the social networking market share, and Facebook has only about 10%, Facebook is getting proportionately more positive press (though the coverage is not as broad, with an article in a high school paper happening to hold the top spot when I did my search this morning.)

Here are the first seven MySpace posts.

1. Court Reverses Penalty Over MySpace Post
2. Man Gets 10 Years For MySpace Assault
3. Teen Kegger Pictures in Myspace Page Lands in Arrests
4. Police: Mom solicited kidnappers on MySpace
5. MySpace Launches Dedicated Video Community for Theatrical Trailer …
6. CBS is totally hip, and down with the Myspace
7. UMD Asks Athletes To Stop Using Facebook, MySpace

Here are the first Facebook hits (I’ve grouped the duplicates).

1. Students forge friendships with future college classmates on Facebook
2. UMD Asks Athletes To Stop Using Facebook, MySpace
   UMD Asks Athletes to Stop Using Facebook, MySpace Web Sites
3. OtherEgo Launches – Myspace, Youtube, Facebook in One Place
4. Online Business Community Makes Appeal to LinkedIn, MySpace …
5. Class of ’11 unites around T-shirt
6. The kid who turned down $1 billion!
7. Let’s all be friends