Friendster. Myspace. Livejournal. Where art thou faithful friends?
I am extremely tempted to continue this post in Old English in order to pay tribute to the ancient legacies which these sites have since left in the ever-changing, unpredictable virtual world that is of the Internet. Unfortunately, just like my knowledge of Old English is limited, so it is the same, for what I know of these once hugely popular online platforms.
Searching on Google (anyone know about Dogpile.com?) I found out that:
Friendster used to be the Facebook at that time and is now, a social gaming site. Myspace which is also a social networking service –is sending out emails to remind past users of the moments they used to share online in an attempt to regain its popularity. Livejournal, something akin to possessing an online diary/blog, is still surviving.
I was born in the late 90s and thus by the time I got through the painfully slow dial-up speed (remember the horrible sound the computer produced in order to get connected?), I was too tired to continue browsing through any websites. For me, it was only much later on with the development of broadband that made me feel that I have really gotten access to the Internet. This also led me to waste huge chunks of my childhood being addicted to Neopets – a virtual pet website- which I quickly abandoned as I grew to become a pseudo-intellectual teenager; I then created a blog from Blogger to develop my “voice” while listening music from Kazaa/LimeWire.
So where exactly are they now?
Friendster is now a social gaming platform.
Comprising of adventure, puzzles, action and sports based online games, Friendster has since reinvented itself and all you need is to log in with your (get this!) Facebook account and voila, you are good to start playing. Founder, Jonathan Abrams is currently working on a social news site, Nuzzel that allows one to read news about people around.
Livejournal is still popular in Russia.
Livejournal is still a “publishing platform” as described on their ‘About’ section of their website. According to Alexa Internet, 50% of LiveJournal’s audience is located in Russia and it is also known as Zhivoy Zhurnal there.
LimeWire and Kazaa are no more.
Let’s just say everything stays in the past for LimeWire and Kazaa. LimeWire and Kazaa used to be a free peer-to-peer file sharing platform. A glance at both their websites indicated that the former appears to be plagued with some sort of lawsuit while the latter has officially shut down. Never mind, at least we now have Spotify to listen to! (inserts annoying Spotify premium upgrade advertisement).
Myspace is some kind of a music platform.
As for Myspace, when I read about what it is doing right now, I cannot help but cringe as I imagine the possibilities. Some digital footprints are simply meant to be left untouched and forgotten but to their credit, the new interface and musical edge they are developing now ain’t all too bad.
Just as the emergence of other sites like WordPress, Tumblr and Facebook begin to replace these older sites, I think perhaps it is time we let go of the past and give them a final wave of goodbye.
