MySpace: It Sucks.

Yeah, I said it. MySpace is an unworthy hole in society that seems to suck in nearly all of us who are social, anti-social, hip, online, or any other descriptor you see fit. I don't even want to link to it, dare I increase their search engine viability any more (if that is even possible).

I have been a MySpace user for a few years now - I have 3 profiles. Some would call it overboard, but I call it proper usage - two are band profiles (one for my neoclassical/blues/jazz/rock music, another for my industrial/neoclassical fusion work), and one is a profile for promoting myself as an artist. Therefore, I think I have a good amount of insight as a user regarding the suck-factor of MySpace.

I'll try and keep this short, and in no particular order.

• The code is quite obviously a monstrous pile of steaming crap. Downtime, regular unexpected maintenance, exploits galore, and much more.
• Profile customizability was found in the form of bloated CSS hacks until only recently, when they finally started offering prefab templates. Beyond that, the fact that MySpace still uses table based layouts shows the sad state of web design in the mainstream world.
  
• Mobile accessibility is a nightmare - try interacting with it on your PDA. Sure, they offer cellular access, but I'm not about to waste my money on it - and I'm sure much of the userbase (aside from the teenagers who don't pay their own cellphone bill) isn't willing to, either.
• Spam is so prolific that you (well, men at least) will spend more time weeding out webcam girl friend requests than actually interacting with real human beings. Of course, that is assuming that he can figure out that the girl who thinks he is a stud is really just trying to get him to buy some Viagra, or something else that is commonly promoted through spam. This goes for band profiles, too.
• For some reason MySpace still hasn't figured out that you might actually want to automatically subscribe to someones' blog if you add them as a friend (aside from bands, of course) - there is no setting for this. Why not? With every friend request I have to click "Subscribe to blog", and confirm that I REALLY want to do it. I firmly believe Vista's "Confirm or Deny" was inspired by MySpace.
• MySpace's blog system still has problems with "alternative" browsers and "alternative" OSes. I try posting a blog to MySpace in Firefox under Linux, I get switched to a lesser editor.
• The advertising doesn't serve the users. I'm sorry, but I'm insulted by the fact that they allow crap like "You've just won a free iPod!*" and more.

That is my rant about MySpace, and why I'm leaving her for someone who is a little more mature. I already use Facebook for my personal profile, and am looking towards Virb.com for my music.

That concludes my rant.