Yeah, I know… I’m so thee years ago. I’m nostalgic as hell for Myspace. While I totally heart nostalgia in its own right, that’s not the reason the demise of Myspace is disappointing. Myspace was a super-useful tool for long-term travel. Long-term is probably not the best term, but I don’t know the right word for it. I’m talking about going somewhere with the intent to stay for a minimum period of months in order to absorb the culture.

Myspace had one characteristic that we may have lost forever. It was something that they could have changed at any time, but didn’t. They resisted the change despite users clamoring for a change. Unfortunately, Facebook came along and based their whole model on this single characteristic. In the process, Myspace was replaced by a tool that resembles it, but has lost its main use case… for me at least.

The cool thing about Myspace was that it allowed massive amounts of shill profiles forced interaction with people outside existing social circles. The inability to hide from stalkers make a profile private was the absolute key factor in this. For a number of reasons (hot girls, I totally get it) having a public profile has its drawbacks. The desire for privacy is strong, but it ultimately ruins the vibrancy of the community.

Facebook is similar to Myspace in that it’s the biggest social network of its time, but it’s completely different. Facebook forces and facilitates interaction within established social circles. It’s great for rekindling old relationships. It’s great for maintaining current relationships. Myspace dominated Facebook in the creating new relationships department. I think Myspace had it right.

Unfortunately, Myspace had a lot of things wrong. I’m not going to analyze all of them, but examining my crack habit resembling Myspace usage history over time indicates they’d be smart to pay me a consulting fee with lots of zeroes at the end to enter into that realm. Well… that is… if I still had a Myspace account for them to make the connection.

In the months before I moved to Panama, I took advantage of Myspace in a big way… It made my life immeasurably better… something I don’t see happening with Facebook. Rather than an introvert showing up in a country where I didn’t speak the language and didn’t know anyone, I social networked myself into anticipated visitor. By the time I boarded my flight from the U.S., I had numerous people willing to pick me up at the airport upon arrival. After I got there, people regularly called me to hang out. I made fast friends with a good group of people and was able to expand my network the old fashioned way. Some of the people I met are still great friends… on Facebook. My experience would have have been much less fulfilling without that.

That’s my most extreme example, but I used the same tactic when I moved to Austin. That was arguably even more effective, but the salacious details aren’t important. I met people in Austin, mostly through Myspace, who remain great friends today. Yes, they’re all on Facebook now too.

For the lifestyle designers who travel in the deepest sense of the word, the demise of Myspace has meant the demise of an amazing tool.