Lessons for Google+ or How MySpace Lost Out to Facebook - Tech Europe - WSJ

By Nick Clayton

Anybody who joined MySpace when it was the only social networking site to belong to will recognise Tom Anderson. He was the president, founder and everybody’s first friend.

On Tech Crunch he has been offering advice for the latest entrant to the social networking scene under the headline: “Five Things I Learned At MySpace That Could Help Google+”. It could equally be seen as an analysis of how MySpace lost its social networking crown to Facebook.

1) Start seriously courting the journalists, tastemakers and celebrities that are using and/or pontificating about G+.

They will otherwise, he warns, get facts wrong as a result of their personal experiences. He suggests journalists initially exaggerated the size of college-oriented Facebook because it was what their posh kids were using rather than MySpace which was actually more popular at the time.

2) Exhaustively think through the privacy issues.

Mr. Anderson warns: “‘Safety’ hysteria destroyed MySpace in the press. It got MySpace banned from schools, Apple stores, and by well-meaning parents who had been terrorized by what they were reading.

3) Move Google’s top analysts onto the Google+ project.

He says: “Facebook was really good at understanding their onboarding process, knowing what key activities led to later usage.”

4) Hire the best product executors and visionaries in the world.

“I’m not referring to run of the mill product managers and UI developers or ‘social media experts,’ but rather that rare breed of people who have demonstrable experience leading users down the path to internet nirvana,” he says.

Finally he says:

5) There must be one ring to rule them all.

“No that leader won’t always get it right, but the clarity achieved and time saved is crucial. The internet moves at lightning speed. If you mess up, a resolute leader can iterate and fix. “

Could he be talking about Mark Zuckerberg?

via blogs.wsj.com