Will we have a German MySpace?

Today I read a good feature (“59 Millionen Freunde”) about MySpace which Tobias Moorstedt wrote in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Actually, it was an opener of the feuilleton section (page 15). As the leading social networking services (SNS) MySpace has become a cultural phenomena.

Moorstedt quoted Danah Boyd, SNS-expert at Berkeley University, that digital profiles are a sort of the digital bodies of users. I also found it interesting what Orkut-Founder Orkut Buyokkokten said about internet communities. They could help to revitalize democracy, because they coordinate interests and needs. 

Or Moorstedt’s reference to Neal Stephenson’s science-fiction story “Snow Crash” (which I haven’t read) or to Salon.com-author Andrew Leonard. Also, he compared the City of MySpace to other mega-cities with their high streets and dark areas (and the security problems). Some others say Myspace is like rather a discotheque that is hip for a while… btw. Unfortunately, I haven’t found the article on Sueddeutsche.de to link, perhaps later today.  

However, what comes to my mind is whether we will see a MySpace-like community in Germany, too? We have Open BC for business, but is there such a network fascinating teenagers as MySpace does? MySpace is often seen as the next MTV. Hence, will we see a German version of MySpace (or is it needed at all, since today’s teenagers just uses the original … most content is generated by users anyhow and is thus be localized by users themselves?) Will we have a VIVA-like German social network? Who will enter the space?

Comments

[Oliver Thylmann]

I think Cryptonomicon is probably his best work. Snow Crash is very good but also very complicated and far out. Sometimes you wonder if he wanted to prove something. But hey, it's a very interesting view on where the future might lead.