MySpace Countdown

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"Goodbye, MySpace." The social networking site that once boasted over a hundred million active users now only counts 10 million. Alas, the days of the Myspace countdown are over and it's time for us all to say goodbye to the pioneering site that was once considered "the Facebook before Facebook existed" and which first introduced music streaming to social media with its myCoolMix playlist service in 2010.

Packed with features like top friends lists, blogs, music playing, photo albums and more, MySpace holds a special place in the hearts of internet users. In its heyday it was home to everyone from indie bands (remember when The Killers were just starting out?) to high school students looking for love. And if you're reading this article right now, there's a good chance you're not even old enough to remember it at its peak.

Those who do remember Myspace fondly are surely celebrating the site's demise. After all, it was as notorious for its preponderance of identity theft and scams as it was beloved by artists looking to network with potential fans. It also provided a stage for all kinds of innovative social experiments and culture jamming, from the relatively innocent animal celebrity lookalike contest to the stalker-friendly 'Find my Myspace friend' feature. (The latter was removed after an outcry by security experts.)

But often what is considered "the worst of the worst" has redeeming features you might not have even noticed. So before we make a clean break and bid our farewells to MySpace, let's take a moment to remember some of the things more likely to make us laugh than cringe.

1. Before Tinychat there was...

...mySpaceIM. MySpaceIM was a standalone messaging client that launched in 2007 and allowed users to create chatrooms and send private messages (PMs). Since then, it has become more of an archive of past conversations but people still occasionally visit to reminisce about the good ol' days.

2. Almost everyone had a mySpace profile, even celebrities! (And it wasn't all for shameless self-promotion. Many were very active and had true fan bases.) Drew Carey, for instance, wrote his whole autobiography on his mySpace blog. It's no surprise he's not tweeting.

3. Do you even remember what this was? How about this? And this? These were all features of the myPage feature, which allowed you to add widgets on your profile page. It was a way of customizing your profile and helping you express yourself (without all the privacy concerns). They're all gone now.

4.

Conclusion

In a sense, Myspace's demise is just another example of why it's always better to have your photos backed up. If you lost all the photos from your old account, at least you'll still have the music, videos and other content stored in your Myspace personal page.

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Myspace Countdown: https://www.myspace.