Social Networking: MySpace And 3 Other Sites That Started The Social Media Craze

This is an opinion piece by Khalil Beckwith, a high school reporter for The Mash, a weekly teen publication distributed to Chicagoland high schools.

Everyone’s all about Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr today, but do you even remember the other social media websites that got the ball rolling? We pay our respects to residents of the social media graveyard.

MySpace. This site was all the rage when I was little, but it went down the gutter gradually. Some say it was because the site lost control of its attempt to gain revenue from advertising. But I think it’s demise was because it was difficult to use. One second, you want to check out someone’s profile page, and all of a sudden that obnoxious song they like is blasting on your computer. Not to mention the outrageous background layouts and neon-colored text. And who the heck was MySpace Tom anyway?

Friendster. Wait, what’s Friendster? Exactly. Friendster went live in 2002 and was one of the original social media sites, similar to MySpace. Before it was redesigned to its current online gaming and entertainment site in 2011, Friendster was popular in the Southeast Asia.

Tagged. Tagged.com has got to be one of the most annoying social networking sites to have ever existed. It was criticized for sending spam emails and paid $1.4 million in legal settlements regarding those practices, mediapost.com reports.

Formspring. Two years ago, I knew loads of people on Formspring. Now, I don’t know any. Formspring was a breeding ground for cyberbullying because of a feature allowing users to ask questions anonymously. People who were too afraid to be jerks in person now had an outlet. Formspring eventually fixed it, but it still lost a lot of users.

Correction: This piece previously stated that Tagged had "gone down the drain" when, according to the company, its revenue grew in 2011. More stories from The Mash:

• COLLEGE VISIT: ‘Best in country’ takes different meaning at Vanderbilt
• BACK TALK: Talkin' 'Bout My Generation
• Zombie-Lover's Playlist