[logo] Myspace: There's No "There" There

2555.

Honestly, I don't see how I missed this one, which debuted about two months back, but maybe that's just a sign of how many of us have moved on.

I never was a passionate user of MySpace (heck, that remark implies I could have been one, when in reality, I was so far away from that it's what they used to term a "toll call"). Absolute and honest truth, there were friends that I could stay in touch with no other way. I actually moved on quite some time ago.

I do recognize, however, that the Myspace (it's no longer CamelCased) logo - taglined a place for friends - was rather stale. It seemed almost 1995ish. I'm usually of the opinion that some logo redesigns are, like endless "celebrity editions" of game shows, a sign of a media in decline. That's not to say that some redesigns are timely, and Myspace was, indeed, due for one. So, they turned on the clever: and here's what they got:

Myblank. Yep. They took one of the most recognizable brands of the first decade of the 21st century and made it a question straight out of Match Game '74. And the BETA? Nice. Very 2004.

In the middle of 2008, I've read, Facebook surpassed Myspace as the premier online social destination. Regardless of what one thinks about FB, it's not too hard to see why. FB not only gives you a simple way to stay connected with your peeps on line but with a clean design doesn't tax the eyes, and the fact that the technology is extensible - with guides out there as to how you can create your own FB apps - mean that FB can be as many things to as many people as developers have the gumption to create (as Zynga has somewhat appallingly proved).

Myspace is always just - Myspace. Here's me, and here's the bands I like. And my website design skills, which are ass: just try to read my text over the hideously eye-bending, low-contrast anime/rock band wallpaper I've used for my background.

I was a member of Myspace but, trust me, I never surfed it. There are some things even I won't do.

But the flat of it is best illustrated thusly. Gertrude Stein is famous for having said, of her childhood hometown, Oakland California, "There is no there, there". Critic Sonja Streuber holds that this is because when Stein went back there to find her childhood home, but could not do so; therefore her "there", her old house, was no longer there.

I would say the same about Myspace. Whatever reason I had for going there has gone, and nothing on that site can - or will, judging by the trend, replace it.

There is no there, there.

The new Myspace logo has that, and how.

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