M$ - Microsoft ? Myspace ?

Myspace has still been holding up, against all odds and all the predictions by sensible people, just defying the logic - how can something so crappy be still so popular ?

And the moment we ask that question, we realize the error in our thinking. All it takes is to look back. But is being crappy the only thing thats similar between Myspace and Microsoft, or is there anything else we can learn and predict ?

Firstly, believe it or not, both Microsoft and Myspace are in the same kind of business - building platforms. Microsoft built a desktop platform, whereas myspace built a networking platform. But on the technology front, Microsoft built a platform to run 3rd party applications, whereas myspace built a online platform to run 3rd party widgets. Niether of them started with that grand scheme, but rather their shortcomings prompted the developers to plug in the gaps and before we know there was a whole new market segment. Entrepernuers, whose forte was identifying all the limitations and building new companies just to fix it. All this is very similar between the two M$'s.

So what does the future hold? If past lessons are anything to go by Myspace will continue to be very open ("absolutely nothing worth keeping a secret"), developer friendly ("we are too lazy to fix our own bugs"), will face a lot of security issues ("users are not worth protecting") and continue building the money muscle ("quality is nothing").

But the fatal mistake of Myspace unlike Microsoft is that they don't have a good plan to 'lock' users in, except for their over-hyped critical mass of users. But in this dynamic age critical mass just gives you a head start. Even the mighties like Google have started to realise (TODO: Add references to backup my bold claims!). Over time, (hopefully in less than a year or two), there will be an awesome addon to myspace which gets the users so hooked that they will forget to go back to myspace.