R.I.P. MySpace

I have to admit, I have really neglected this blog during the past few months. When I started this blog last August, I posted dozens of posts in that month, and afterward, I have just seemed to have gotten a little negligent. Well, those days are going to change. It's not likely that I am going to post as much as I did at that August, but I do promise to post a little bit more than I have been. And it all starts right now...

As I said, I haven't been posting much, but when I have been posting, it has mostly been to eulogize some of the notable people that have died at that time (such as Ted Kennedy, Abe Polin, etc). And this particular post will continue in that tradition, and will be to eulogize something else... which is MySpace.com.

I know that I might be a little bit late in saying this, but during the past few months, I personally experienced how far down MySpace has fallen...

In the mid 00s, MySpace was the biggest thing going in Social Networking, beating out the likes of Friendster, AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, Bebo, and whatever else was out there (even Facebook, when they were strictly just for schools, colleges, and alumni). I started a myspace personal account in 2005 to connect with some of my friends in high school, and some other people I've connected with on the Internet, and thought it was pretty cool. About more than a year later, I started a music profile to promote my motivational CD "The ULTIMATE Crash Course". I was able to build the network in that particular profile to an astounding 25,000+. And from there, I was able to let people listen to snippets of my CD, promote some of my motivational pieces/videos, do a R.A.P., and even sell a few CDs here and there. What I thought was cool about myspace, was that I found a way (using a friendbot) to greet everyone a happy birthday the Monday before there special day. And with that, I gained a lot of appreciative "friends" who truly wanted to connect with me.

But herein lies the problem. MySpace had a flaw in their system, which made it easy for people, hackers, and advertisers to put viruses in your computer (whether knowingly or unknowingly) through scripts, and other technical jargon I don't understand. People started getting abusive. Therefore, MySpace had to make drastic changes to their system so people who abused it can't get as much out of it anymore. Problem is, they took away a lot of what some of us law-abiding users deemed beneficial. For example, people with more than 5000 friends can't view the birthdays anymore, so not only can the friendbot that I used pull out who has a birthday in a week, but I (the human being) can't even see who has a birthday anymore. This, among a lot of the other things (like the fact that a lot of their "new(er) stuff" like application integration, status feeds, and "the lite version", was late to the party and discovered by Facebook months beforehand) made people not really care about their site anymore. Personally, I've only logged onto myspace twice THIS MONTH. I used to log into it everyday. And, when I do log into myspace, all I get in my inbox are hundreds of event invites to events that I'm not going to, ingenuine messages that I can't read, as well as spam that everybody (including myspace themselves) send out. Arrgh! I used to get tons of meaningful messages everyday from people thanking me for what I've done, and I don't even get those anymore... because I couldn't really give them a reason to.

Not to mention, MySpace is too commercialized now. Even more-so when Rupert Murdoch bought it. Facebook is commercialized too, but all these pop-ups and blatant sponsorship ads in videos and music players on myspace totally get in the way and take away from the experience. In Facebook, most of the ads that lag your computer are in the applications. And, you don't have to add those if you don't want to.

It's really a shame that MySpace fell as far as it did. Don't get me wrong, people are still using it, and it's still ranked pretty high in alexa.com (with a ranking of 17). But, twitter has now officially passed it (with a ranking of 12), and Facebook is destroying it (with a ranking of 2, only behind Google)! It stinks too... because like I said, I have built a 25,000+ following on myspace because it was the next big thing in 2006. But, since nobody really cares about myspace anymore, and not as many people log into it... it doesn't matter as much. You can't really connect with people as well on there anymore.

In closing... I just wanted to say R.I.P. Myspace. Kind of makes me wonder if MySpace inventor Tom has a Facebook.

(Feel free to add me on the other social networking sites out there...)

Facebook: http://facebook.com/Obedoza

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ObeCorp

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-obedoza/19/742/ba0

D4P...PD!!!

-John

DC has lost an Icon... RIP Abe Pollin

During the past day and a half, there have been many local columnists, bloggers, reporters, celebrities, and media personalities doing tributes to the recently deceased owner of the Washington Wizards Abe Pollin. But you know, all the great things that has been said about Abe Pollin is well-deserved. In my opinion, he was probably one of the most important non-political figures here in DC, as he was very integral and single-handedly had a lot to do with the revitalization of what the city of DC has become today.

For those who just vaguely know the name of "Abe Pollin" he was known as the passionate sports owner. He owned the professional basketball team here in DC, that he brought from Chicago, then to Baltimore, then to DC. This team eventually became known as the Washington Bullets, then (due to political incorrectness) later became known as the Washington Wizards. He also brought professional hockey to Washington when the Expansion Capitals came to the NHL in '74. Overall, during his career in sports, he has owned 3 teams in the NBA's Bullets/Wizards, WNBA's Mystics, and NHL's Capitals.

But what I think what people would really remember him for is building the MCI Center (now Verizon Center) right smackdab in the middle of Washington, DC. An outstanding thing about that is that he pretty much built this arena with his own money, because at the time, the city was broke, and didn't have the money to issue bonds to pay to build the arena. If you lived in DC back then, you would remember that this part of the area was a pretty scary area to go to (almost as bad as the Anacostia/Southeast DC area was). But even more outstanding than that was that Abe Pollin building that arena pretty led to getting that area, and eventually the whole city becoming revitalized. Before that arena, there was nothing but run down buildings and apartment complexes, filled with lots of shady characters walking down the street. Nobody would think of getting off the Gallery-Place Metro Station. Now, that particular Metro Stop is pretty much the place to get off. There are tons of businesses around that arena, like office buildings, all sorts of restaurants, clubs, etc. Roughly 12 years after that arena opened that particular area of DC has become the spot where everything is happening.

Abe Pollin building that arena was the catalyst to the growth of the whole city of Washington, DC during the past 10 years. He inspired more real-estate moguls from around the country to take notice in this area and invest in this area by building properties, which eventually led to having this city more attractive overall, and raised the per capita income in the city and stimulated the local economy. If Abe didn't build the MCI Center, we wouldn't have building such as the Spy Museum, we wouldn't have most of the restaurants that we'd have (like Legal Sea Foods, the ESPN Zone, etc), and we wouldn't have Nationals Park, and arguably, the Washington Nationals. (The Expos were brought here because through it's well-improved economy during the past decade, partly thanks to the MCI Center, it was thought that this city can support a baseball team, and build a beautiful new stadium that people hoped could do for SE DC what the MCI Center did to Chinatown).

But as far as the Arena itself, it was one of the most revolutionary arenas of it's time, with a Jumbotron that was the first of it's kind (which later became an HD screen of it's kind), with several luxury suites, and cosy seats on the concourse. I remembered seeing the arena when it debuted on December '97 when the Wizards played the Sonics, and was just impressed with what I saw in TV. Then, when I got to go to my first event in MCI Center (which was a WCW Starrcade Wrestling Pay-Per-View), I was simply awestruck by the arena, as there was not a bad seat in the house. I have since then been to many other events in this arena, and has sat in many different sections, and I'm still awestruck with everything I've seen (as the last event I've been through, coincidentally, was another wrestling pay-per-view, in WWE Survivor Series this past Sunday).

People will truly remember Mr. Pollin for what all that he's done in this city... through building this arena, and through his other charity and philantrophic work. He'd donated millions to charity, give houses and money to the less fortunate, and along with Gilbert Arenas, help build schools around the area (through the Gilbert scores for schools program). He has singlehandedly done more for this particular city, than probably most owners in any city has done for theirs. I've previously blogged about current Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis, and most of Mr. Leonsis principles were modeled from what Mr. Pollin believed in.

Unless you've lived in this area, you can't really understand how important Abe Pollin has been to this city. But even then, even if you lived in the area, you wouldn't really know the full extent of how he really was a human being and how he worked. (Even I doubted him at times, and was clueless with some of the decisions he's made in certain times, such as his firing of Michael Jordan as an executive. At the time, I didn't know it, but it turned out to be a great move).

But, I would say, that I do know, that through everything he has accomplished in the past 5 decades, it would be hard to top his legacy, not only as an NBA Owner, but as a person in general.

So RIP Mr. Pollin. The D.M.V. is surely going to miss you. Your love and accomplishments to this area is something that I personally want to get to someday, and without it, this city wouldn't be where it is. Washington Sports and Entertainment, and Washington, DC in general will never be the same about you!

D4P...PD!!!
-John

RIP Ted Kennedy

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I heard was that Ted Kennedy passed away.

I don't have to write a big long blog to honor Ted Kennedy, since his legacy doesn't need explaining, and everything he's done for this world can explain itself. But, he was truly one of those people who truly changed the world for the better. He worked as a US Senator for almost 57 years. I truly doubt many people can stay at any job for 6 decades, much more a job that has to do with helping to legislate a top world power.

Even without the the last name, this man was a legacy upon his own. RIP Ted Kennedy.