14 DAY TRIAL // MySpace has thrown in the towel a long time ago, in a way, and admitted defeat in front of Facebook’s onslaught. But that doesn’t mean it’s closing down shop, it still has tens of millions of monthly visitors, in the US alone, and the social network has been on somewhat of a soul search lately. The latest product of this quest to reinvent itself are redesigned profile pages. For MySpace, this is huge, the social network has grown to be known as the Geocities of the decade.
“We’re testing a new look and feel of our site among users and the response so far has been positive,” MySpace told Mashable. “As always, we’re interested in hearing feedback from our community as we roll out enhancements to the user experience and look forward to sharing more details with you in the coming weeks.”
The new profile pages, now in testing, are a lot cleaner than before and even slicker than Facebook’s. MySpace made a semi-official announcement when Sean Percival, the site’s vice president of online marketing, tweeted about his updated profile page earlier. Other users have seen the changes, but they haven’t been rolled out to everyone yet.
The changes are more than skin deep, the layout has been altered and some features are emphasised over others. The MySpace Stream is better highlighted and the site features a left-side navigation menu to get to the various sections, Profile, Photos, Friends and so on.
Another very interesting feature, but one in line with MySpace’s newer philosophy, is a new Follow module. On the right, you’ll notice a module which enables you to follow the person who’s profile you’re seeing not only on MySpace, but also on Twitter, YouTube as well as other sites and, yes, even on Facebook. Will the changes be enough to turn things around for MySpace, is the obvious question. It remains to be seen, but it’s a very good step in that direction.