There was a time some of friends were asking me if I have a Friendster account, I answered None. Their reaction: I am not a true-blooded Netizens. Now, their question is: “Do you have a MySpace account?”. I still have the same answer: NONE. I am just surprised why is it that it’s MySpace now, what happen to Friendster?

MySpace.com is a free service that uses the Internet for online communication through an interactive network of photos, weblogs, user profiles, e-mail, web forums, and groups, as well as other media formats. It’s a place where you get to meet people or just plain old friends online. you have your own profile and you get to show pictures of yourself and write down stuff about you and your interests.

Social networking is about connecting friends, business partners, or other individuals together using a variety of tools. The popularity of social networking sites like Friendster and MySpace is unbelievable. What’s more surprising is MySpace overtaking Friendster. MySpace has more than 54 million registered users, compared with more than 24 million for Friendster in just over 2 years.

According to Alexa Internet, as of July 2006 it is the world’s fourth most popular English-language website and the sixth most popular in any language. MySpace is getting as many as 180,000 new members a day. Neilsen/Netratings said MySpace ranks 13th among all sites. Comscore Media Metrix places MySpace fourth by total pageviews, two notches above Google.

So the next question to ask is: What did MySpace do to become this successful? Simple - MySpace provided innovation and Net Freedom to its users.

MySpace allow its members to express themselves however they like, even if MySpace don’t like how they are doing it. MySpace members are using media such as photos, music, video, and Web links to express who they are or want to be. MySpace comments section took the form of a performative guestbook. Whenever someone thinks of someone else, whenever they stop by, they leave a comment. They let both the owner and the owners’ visitors take note of their presence.

Customization is key. MySpace allows its members to obtain Web programming code elsewhere to create their own layouts, change background colors or incorporate photos and video stored at other sites. Just to show how important this is - just recently Friendster added a similar feature and changes its old template style of building Friendster pages.

MySpace lets bands and upcoming artists to upload songs into what’s essentially a closed file sharing network, and then lets kids AutoPlay them from their pages - so that they function like ringtones, as a badge of identity. It’s a community built around content. All for FREE.

MySpace also started its own recording label, and it is now hoping to bring that magic to filmmakers, and later to comedians and fashion designers. MySpace evolved and grew with its users, building a trusting relationship, figuring out how to meet their needs and cultural desires, providing them with features and provide them the things its users are looking for. Friendster did not - it fought its users hand and foot, telling them how to behave.

The main reason why MySpace overtook Friendster in terms of popularity is MySpace provided freedom and liberty to its users. Friendster provided too many rules to its members, they want to keep it clean. MySpace allowed its members to express their thoughts, creativity and personality. And because of this, its members grew. And when it comes to social networking, people use the social technologies that all of their friends are using.

If there’s any lesson learned here, it is that social technologies succeed when they fit into the social lives and practices of those who engage with the technology. MySpace’s future ultimately rides on intangibles that transcend technology and focus groups. The service’s value grows the more people use it. And growth gives MySpace more reason to add features. One of which is MySpace wants to expand internationally and on wireless devices, and it is adding such features as video-sharing to become more like a Web portal.

If there’s anything MySpace has to watch for are the moral issues. Too much freedom is also not good, more often than not - it will be abused. MySpace should be able to determine when it’s time to draw the line and at what level should freedom be given. Otherwise, MySpace will be in a big trouble sooner than they thought.